第98章

While the weeping group still stood there, doctors came; they looked at the quiet face, so beautiful in death, and said she had been dead for hours. The words struck those who heard them with unutterable horror. Dead, while those who loved her so dearly, who would have given their lives for her, had lain sleeping near her, unconscious of her doom--dead, while her lover had waited for her, and her father had been intently thinking of her approaching wedding.

What had she suffered during the night? What awful storm of agony had driven her to the lake? Had she gone thither purposely? Had she wandered to the edge and fallen in, or was there a deeper mystery? Had foul wrong been done to Lord Earle's daughter while he was so near her, and yet knew nothing of it?

She still wore her pretty pink evening dress. What a mockery it looked! The delicate laces were wet and spoiled; the pink blossoms she had twined in her hair clung to it still; the diamond arrow Lord Airlie had given her fastened them, a diamond brooch was in the bodice of her dress, and a costly bracelet encircled the white, cold arm. She had not, then, removed her jewels or changed her dress. What could have taken her down to the lake? Why was Lord Airlie's locket so tightly clinched in her hand?

Lord Airlie, when he was calm enough to speak, suggested that she might have fallen asleep, tired, before undressing--that in her sleep she might have walked out, gone to the edge of the lake, and fallen in.

That version spread among the servants. From them it spread like wildfire around the whole country-side; the country papers were filled with it, and the London papers afterward told how "the beautiful Miss Earle" had been drowned while walking in her sleep.

But Lord Airlie's suggestion did not satisfy Ronald Earle; he would not leave the darkened chamber. Women's gentle hands removed the bright jewels and the evening dress. Lady Helena, with tears that fell like rain, dried the long, waving hair, and drew it back from the placid brow. She closed the eyes, but she could not cross the white hands on the cold breast. One held the locket in the firm, tight clasp of death, and it could not be moved.

Ronald would not leave the room. Gentle hands finished their task. Beatrice lay in the awful beauty of death--no pain, no sorrow moving the serene loveliness of her placid brow. He knelt by her side. It was his little Beatrice, this strange, cold, marble statue--his little baby Beatrice, who had leaped in his arms years ago, who had cried and laughed, who had learned in pretty accents to lisp his name--his beautiful child, his proud, bright daughter, who had kissed him the previous night while he spoke jesting words to her about her lover. And he had never heard her voice since--never would hear it again. Had she called him when the dark waters closed over her bright head?

Cold, motionless, no gleam of life or light--and this was Dora's little child! He uttered a great cry as the thought struck him:

"What would Dora say?" He loved Beatrice; yet for all the long years of her childhood he had been absent from her. How must Dora love the child who had slept on her bosom, and who was now parted from her forever.

And then his thoughts went back to the old subject: "How had it happened? What had taken her to the lake?"

One knelt near who might have told him, but a numb, awful dread had seized upon Lillian. Already weak and ill, she was unable to think, unable to shape her ideas, unable to tell right from wrong.

She alone held the clew to the mystery, and she knelt by that death bed with pale, parted lips and eyes full of terror. Her face startled those who saw it. Her sorrow found no vent in tears; the gentle eyes seemed changed into balls of fire; she could not realize that it was Beatrice who lay there, so calm and still--Beatrice, who had knelt at her feet and prayed that she would save her--Beatrice, who had believed herself so near the climax of her happiness.

Could she have met Hugh, and had he murdered her? Look where she would, Lillian saw that question written in fiery letters. What ought she to do? Must she tell Lord Earle, or did the promise she had made bind her in death as well as in life. Nothing could restore her sister. Ought she to tell all she knew, and to stain in death the name that was honored and loved?

One of the doctors called in saw the face of Lillian Earle. He went at once to Lady Helena, and told her that if the young lady was not removed from that room, and kept quiet she would be in danger of her life.

"If ever I saw a face denoting that the brain was disturbed," he said, "that is one."

Lillian was taken back to her room, and left with careful nurses.

But the doctor's warning proved true. While Lord Earle wept over the dead child, Lady Helena mourned over the living one, whose life hung by a thread.

The day wore on; the gloom of sorrow and mourning had settled on the Hall. Servants spoke with hushed voices and moved with gentle tread. Lady Helena sat in the darkened room where Lillian lay. Lord Airlie had shut himself up alone, and Ronald Earle knelt all day by his dead child. In vain they entreated him to move, to take food or wine, to go to his own room. He remained by her, trying to glean from that silent face the secret of her death.

And when night fell again, he sunk exhausted. Feverish slumbers came to him, filled with a haunted dream of Beatrice sinking in the dark water and calling upon him for help. Kindly faces watched over him, kindly hands tended him. The morning sun found him still there.

Lady Helena brought him some tea and besought him to drink it.

The parched, dried lips almost refused their office. It was an hour afterward that Hewson entered the room, bearing a letter in his hand. It was brought, he said by Thomas Ginns, who lived at the cottage past Fair Glenn hills. It had been written by a man who lay dying there, and who had prayed him to take it at once without delay.

"I ventured to bring it to you, my lord," said the butler; "the man seemed to think it a matter of life or death."