To Ethelwynn I sent a telegram addressed to the Hennikers, in order that she should receive it the instant she arrived in town. Briefly I explained the tragedy, and asked her to come down to the Manor at once, feeling assured that Mrs. Mivart, in the hour of her distress, desired her daughter at her side. Then I accompanied the local constable, and the three police officers who had come over from Oundle, down to the riverside.
The brilliant afterglow tinged the broad, brimming river with a crimson light, and the trees beside the water already threw heavy shadows, for the day was dying, and the glamour of the fading sunset and the dead stillness of departing day had fallen upon everything. Escorted by a small crowd of curious villagers, we walked along the footpath over the familiar ground that I had traversed when following the pair. Eagerly we searched everywhere for traces of a struggle, but the only spot where the long grass was trodden down was at a point a little beyond the ferry. Yet as far as I could see there was no actual sign of any struggle. It was merely as though the grass had been flattened by the trailing of a woman’s skirt across it. Examination showed, too, imprints of Louis XV. heels in the soft clay bank. One print was perfect, but the other, close to the edge, gave evidence that the foot had slipped, thus establishing the spot as that where the unfortunate young lady had fallen into the water. When examining the body I had noticed that she was wearing Louis XV. shoes, and also that there was still mud upon the heels. She had always been rather proud of her feet, and surely there is nothing which sets off the shape of a woman’s foot better than the neat little shoe, with its high instep and heel.
We searched on until twilight darkened into night, traversing that path every detail of which had impressed itself so indelibly upon my brain. We passed the stile near which I had stood hidden in the bushes and overheard that remarkable conversation between the “dead” man and his wife. All the memories of that never-to-be-forgotten night returned to me. Alas! that I had not questioned Mary when she had called upon me on the previous day.
She had died, and her secret was lost.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ETHELWYNN IS SILENT.
At midnight I was seated in the drawing-room of the Manor. Before me, dressed in plain black which made her beautiful face look even paler than it was, sat my love, bowed, despondent, silent. The household, although still astir, was hushed by the presence of the dead; the long old room itself, usually so bright and pleasant, seemed full of dark shadows, for the lamp, beneath its yellow shade, burned but dimly, and everywhere there reigned an air of mourning.
Half-demented by grief, my love had arrived in hot haste about ten o’clock, and, rushing to poor Mary’s room, had thrown herself upon her knees beside the poor inanimate clay; for, even though of late differences might have existed between them, the sisters were certainly devoted to each other. The scene in that room was an unhappy one, for although Ethelwynn betrayed nothing by her lips, I saw by her manner that she was full of remorse over the might-have-beens, and that she was bitterly reproaching herself for some fact of which I had no knowledge.