She knelt upon the white bear-skin rug, and taking the poker tried to stir it into a blaze again; but the faint flicker made her shiver. She dropped the poker from her cold fingers, and burying her white face upon her knees crossed her arms around them.
Her grief for her betrothed seemed to be swallowed up in the awful sense of horror that oppressed her. It was not so much of Olney Winthrop murdered that she thought, as of Leith Pierrepont murderer.
And then the shadows lengthened and dusk faded into night. The poor fire died entirely and lay gray and passionless upon the hearth. The cold flash of an electric lamp shone through the window, over which the shade had not been drawn, and lay in a line of light across the floor, beyond which were ponderous caverns made of shadow.
It was ghoulish, eerie.
She would have thought it strange that her maid had not come to prepare her bath and bed if she had been in a condition to consider ordinary subjects, but matters of daily moment and time ceased to exist for her during those hours.
Once or twice she moved uneasily, and a hoarse moan left her lips as if some horrible thought, too heavy to be borne in silence, weighed upon her heart.
And then at last she lifted her head. The eyes burned like living coals, but the face was gray and passionless, like the dead ashes upon the hearth. It was a curious, uncanny contrast.
Her neck was stiff and sore from its long continuance in one position, but she did not seem to be conscious of it. Her fingers were still interlaced about her knee. Her mental faculties seemed to return to her suddenly.
"He told me that he loved me, that whether I desired or not, I should be his wife," she said in a low, hoarse tone that fitted the scene with curious horror, the "he" referring to Leith Pierrepont. "Knowing that I was the betrothed wife of his friend, he came in that friend's absence and made his dastardly proposal to me. Can it be that he has done this thing for—that? For that? In order that he might carry out this hideous desire? Good God! No human thing with the dim shadow of blood in his veins could do a thing so vile. And yet—God of Heaven, I will know! I must know! I will avenge you, Olney! I swear it! Do you hear me, sleeping there in your lonely grave? I swear that I will avenge you, and that I will bring your murderer to justice, let it cost me what it will of womanliness, of self-respect, of life itself even. My moment of weakness is passed, and the work shall commence at once."
She arose, feverishly stiff and cramped from her long, sorrowful vigil, and walked with a step that was almost firm to the door.