Never as long as Ella Winter lives will she forget the picture that imprinted itself on her brain, as instantaneously as though it had been photographed there, at the moment when, startled by Aaron Stone's cry, she stepped out of the window of the sitting-room. On the borders of the lawn, at the foot of a large holly-bush, the leaves of which glistened brightly in the morning sun, knelt Aaron, his rugged features working convulsively, his trembling arms twined round the unconscious form of him who lay there in all the moveless majesty of death. One glance at the white set face, and Ella knew that the wanderer, whose absence had caused so much speculation, had come back at last, but that whatever secrets he might have in his keeping would remain secrets still, and would never be whispered in mortal ear. The pulses of her life stood still as she gazed in her shock of bewilderment.
The old man's voice broke the spell: he saw her standing there.
"Oh, ma'am, my dear young mistress, it is my boy! My boy come back to me--dead. There has been murder done here!"
A shudder ran through Ella. Murder! Was it true?--or was old Aaron demented?
She rushed indoors to the sitting-room, ringing its bells as they had never been rung before; and then she sank into a chair. Never had Ella Winter been so near fainting.
The servants came running in, and she strove to collect her thoughts. Some one ran to the huge bell that rang in the stable-yard, and sounded a peal upon it. It brought forth the coachman, Barnet. John Tilney came up with one of his men.
Barnet satisfied himself that Hubert Stone was really dead, also that he had in all probability been murdered; he then sped back to his stable-yard, and saddled a horse to ride forth in search of a doctor. "Fetch the nearest doctor you can find," had been Miss Winter's gasping order to him, and he hastened to obey it. By Barnet's orders the groom rode forth on another horse to summon the chief-constable from his office at Nullington.
The frightened maids had gathered round Miss Winter, when Dorothy Stone appeared in the doorway, tying her cap-strings with trembling fingers. The bells and the commotion had startled her, but she did not know what had happened. At sight of the patient, furrowed face and the dim blue eyes, just now full of anxious wonder, a great pity took the heart of Miss Winter, and the tears filled her own eyes as she went up to the old woman and led her away. No need for her to know the terrible news just yet.
Mrs. Toynbee next appeared upon the scene; she had waited to dress. Her first act was to order the white-faced servants away to their duties; her second to speak with John Tilney. It was by her directions that he and his two men--for the other man had come up now--carried the ill-fated young fellow into a room on the ground-floor. Then, with much tact and gentleness, Mrs. Toynbee succeeded in persuading Aaron, who seemed half-stupefied with grief and horror, to allow himself to be got into his own apartments by Tilney. Nothing more could be done till the arrival of the doctor and the police.
Dr. Spreckley and Mr. Chief-Constable Wade reached Heron Dyke together, driving over in a gig from the Rose and Crown. The first thing they did was to look at the dead. That Hubert Stone had been murdered a very slight examination sufficed to prove. He had been stabbed through the heart with a stiletto or some other sharp instrument. The disordered state of his attire, as well as the condition of the trimly-kept gravel walk, showed that he had not met his fate without a struggle; some desperate encounter must have taken place.