up close to the bed, bent over it a moment, and then with a shudder he snatched the curtain from Claire’s hand, and thrust it down.
“Dead!” he said, with a gasp. “Dead!”
There was an awful silence in the room for a few moments, during which the ticking of the little clock on the table beyond the bed sounded painfully loud, and the beat of the waves amid the shingle rose into a loud roar.
“Father, she has been – ”
“Hush!” he half shrieked, “don’t say so. Oh, my child, my child!”
Claire trembled, and it was as though a mutual attraction drew them to gaze fixedly the one at the other, in spite of every effort to tear their eyes away.
At last, with a wrench, the old man turned his head aside, and Claire uttered a low moan as she glanced from him to the bed and then back towards the window.
“Ah!” she cried, starting forward, and, bending down beside the dressing-table, she picked up the casket that was lying half hidden by drapery upon the floor.
But the jewel-casket was quite empty, and she set it down upon the table. It had been wrenched open with a chisel or knife-blade, and the loops of the lock had been torn out.
“Shall we – a doctor – the constables?” he stammered.
“I – I do not know,” said Claire hoarsely, acting like one in a dream; and she staggered forward, kicking against something that had fallen near the casket.
She involuntarily stooped to pick it up, but it had been jerked by her foot nearer to her father, who bent down with the quickness of a boy and snatched it up, hiding it hastily beneath his dressing-gown, but not so quickly that Claire could not see that it was a great clasp-knife.
“What is that?” she cried sharply.
“Nothing – nothing,” he said.
They stood gazing at each other for a few moments, and then the old man uttered a hoarse gasp.
“Did – did you see what I picked up?” he whispered; and he caught her arm with his trembling hand.
“Yes; it was a knife.”
“No,” he cried wildly. “No; you saw nothing. You did not see me pick up that knife.”
“I did, father,” said Claire, shrinking from him with an invincible repugnance.
“You did not,” he whispered. “You dare not say you did, when I say be silent.”
“Oh, father! father!” she cried with a burst of agony.
“It means life or death,” he whispered, grasping her arm so tightly that his fingers seemed to be turned to iron. “Come,” he cried with more energy, “hold the light.”
He crossed the room and opened the folding-doors, going straight into the drawing-room, when the roar of the surf upon the shore grew louder, and as Claire involuntarily followed, she listened in a heavy-dazed way as her father pointed out that a chair had been overturned, and that the window was open and one of the flower-pots in the balcony upset.
“The jasmine is torn away from the post and balustrade,” he said huskily; “someone must have climbed up there.”
Claire did not speak, but listened to him as he grew more animated now, and talked quickly.
“Let us call up Isaac and Morton,” he said. “We must have help. The doctor should be fetched, and – and a constable.”
Claire gazed at him wildly.
“Did – did you hear anything?” he said hurriedly, as he closed the folding-doors.
“I was asleep,” said Claire, starting and shuddering as she heard his words. “I thought I heard a cry.”
“Yes, a cry,” he said; “I thought I heard a cry and I dressed quickly and was going to see, when – when you came to me. Recollect that you will be called up to speak, my child – an inquest – that is all you know. You went in and found Lady Teigne dead, and you came and summoned me. That is all you know.”
She did not answer, and he once more gripped her fiercely by the wrist.
“Do you hear me?” he cried. “I say that is all you know.”
She looked at him again without answering, and he left her to go and summon Morton and the footman.
Claire stood in the drawing-room, still holding the candlestick in her hand, with the stiffening form of the solitary old woman, whose flame of life had been flickering so weakly in its worldly old socket that the momentary touch of the extinguisher had been sufficient to put it out, lying just beyond those doors; on the other hand the roar of the falling tide faintly heard now through the closed window. She heard her father knocking at the door of her brother’s room. Then she heard the stairs creak as he descended to call up the footman from the pantry below; and as she listened everything seemed strange and unreal, and she could not believe that a horror had fallen upon them that should make a hideous gulf between her and her father for ever, blast her young life so that she would never dare again to give her innocent love to the man by whom she knew she was idolised, and make her whole future a terror – a terror lest that which she felt she knew must be discovered, if she, weak woman that she was, ever inadvertently spoke what was life and light to her – the truth.
“My God! What shall I do?”
It was a wild passionate cry for help where she felt that help could only be, and then, with her brain swimming, and a horrible dread upon her, she was about to open her lips and denounce her own father – the man who gave her life – as a murderer and robber of the dead. She turned to the door as it opened, and, deadly pale, but calm and firm now, Stuart Denville, Master of the Ceremonies at Saltinville, entered the room.
He uttered a low cry, and started forward to save her, but he was too late. Claire had fallen heavily upon her face, her hands outstretched, and the china candlestick she still held was shattered to fragments upon the floor.
At that moment, as if in mockery, a sweet, low chord of music rose from without, below the window, and floating away on the soft night air, the old man felt the sweet melody thrill his very nerves as he sank upon his knees beside his child.
Volume One – Chapter Six.
A Ghastly Serenade
“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Lascelles, “I am an old fogey, and I never break my rules. At my time of life a man wants plenty of sleep, so I must ask you to excuse me. Rockley shall take my place, and I beg – I insist – that none will stir. Smith, send the Major’s servant to see if he is better.”
A smart-looking dragoon, who had been acting the part of butler at the mess table, saluted.
“Beg pardon, sir, James Bell is sick.”
“Drunk, you mean, sir,” cried the Colonel angrily. “Confound the fellow! he is always tippling the mess wine.”
“Small blame to him, Colonel,” said the Adjutant with tipsy gravity; “’tis very good.”
“And disagreed with his master early in the evening,” said the Doctor.
