She looked at me silently, the terror in her eyes growing.
She began to give me a strangely uneasy feeling.
“Oh, it’s horrible, horrible,” she murmured, and then stole away, moving along the parapet like a ghost.
I was afraid of her, and of what she might do. She was evidently losing her self-control fast. That she had guessed the truth was obvious.
I went towards her rooms. They were dark. Perhaps she was still wandering on the battlements with her unquiet thoughts.
I found my wife sitting up when I returned. She had been with Lady Gascoyne.
“Such an utter loneliness, Israel. It is terrible. She seems to have lost all interest in life. I have never seen such desolation.”
People have a way of being superlative when talking of those in grief. I, too, was very sorry for Lady Gascoyne, but though she had no children, she had everything else in the world to console her.
I comforted my wife and took her in my arms, wondering curiously whether this would be the last night we should spend together, which, indeed, it turned out to be.
The next day the inquest was resumed. None of the ladies of the castle were present. Mr. Gascoyne—or Lord Gascoyne, as he was now called—looked haggard and worn, and, as I thought, avoided my eye. His manner, however, was extraordinarily kindly.