Lionel Thornhill rushed into the little space, but all was vacant. A nameless feeling led him to the base of that tree; he trod on something, he knew not what, of a strange texture, stopped—it was Margaret’s mantle.
One bound to the tank’s marge, and there, revealed in the gloom of night, in the blackness of those awful waters, by the brightness of her own purity, he found his lost one.
At that same hour, in Margaret’s withdrawing-room, sat two men by a blazing hearth, with cheerful lamps above, and a steaming posset cup between them.
They talked, they laughed, they were merry.
Sir Hugh Clavering and Sir Andrew Acton.
There came a strangely sounding footstep, fleet as the wind, yet heavy as lead, on the road before the house. The hall door was cast violently open—the strange step came direct across the oaken hall, across the antechamber, along the corridor, every door dashed open with rude force—the door of the withdrawing-room the last; and in the door-way, with that snow-white, dripping figure, its long locks of gold, lank and disheveled, its white robes clinging to the unrivalled form, cast a dead weight upon his shoulder, stood Lionel Thornhill, the brave banneret, the successful soldier.
One stride brought him to the table, one stroke swept posset-cup and goblets from the board. Then, reverentially he composed the dead form thereon, while the soul-stricken pair gazed on him, scarcely conscious, and aghast, and at a single motion removing his hat and unsheathing his rapier,
“If that,” he said, pointing to the body, “if that sight slay not, swords are useless. For the rest, you, who have done this thing, and another that is yet to be, look to it! Margaret! Margaret! I tarried not; and if I came too late—nor do I tarry now—Margaret! Margaret! my wife, I come!”
And with the word, he drove the sword into his own breast with so true an aim, and a hand so steady, that the point cleft his heart, and he was a dead man, while yet he stood upon his feet.
They lie in nameless graves—their murderers beneath emblazoned monuments. No record is preserved of them, save in this humble tale, and in these touching words carved on the brink of that fatal tank:—