"Gerald, don't!" she cried in a pained voice. "Baron von Rosenberg is dead--murdered in his own house leas than an hour ago!"
Gerald rose slowly from his chair as if drawn upward by some invisible force. The sudden pallor that blanched his face frightened his wife. She sprang forward and laid a hand on his arm. He shook it off almost roughly. "Tell me again what you told me just now," he said in a voice which Clara scarcely recognised as that of her husband.
She told him again. "Murdered! Von Rosenberg! Impossible!"
"Dixon brought the news; he has just ridden up from King's Harold."
Gerald sank into his seat again. His eyes were fixed on vacancy. For a few moments he looked as if his brain had been paralysed.
Miss Primby came bustling in. "Oh, my dear Clara, can it be possible that this dreadful--dreadful news is true?"
"Only too true, I am afraid, aunt."
"Poor Baron! Poor dear man! What a shocking end! I never knew a man with more charming manners. Cut off in the flower of his age, as one may say."
"Perhaps, dear, you would like to see Dixon and question him," said Clara to her husband.
He simply nodded. Mrs. Brooke rang the bell and Dixon the groom entered. "You had better tell your master all you know about this frightful tragedy."