up on every side, for the only one which could give me back my self-possession. But though there were many girlish countenances to be seen in the awestruck groups huddled in every corner, I beheld no Dorothy, and was therefore but little astonished when in another moment I heard the cry go up:
"Where is Dorothy? Where was she when her aunt died?"
Alas! there was no one there to answer, and the looks of those about, which hitherto had expressed little save awe and fright, turned to wonder, and more than one person left the room as if to look for her. I did not join them. I was rooted to the place. Nor did Sinclair stir a foot, though his eye, which had been wandering restlessly over the faces about him, now settled inquiringly on the doorway. For whom was he looking? Gilbertine or Dorothy? Gilbertine, no doubt, for he visibly brightened as her figure presently appeared clad in a negligée, which emphasized her height and gave to her whole appearance a womanly sobriety unusual to it.
She had evidently been told what had occurred, for she asked no questions, only leaned in still horror against the door-post, with her eyes fixed on the room within. Sinclair, advancing, held out his arm. She gave no sign of seeing it. Then he spoke. This seemed to rouse her, for she gave him a grateful look, though she did not take his arm.
"There will be no wedding to-morrow," fell from her lips in self-communing murmur.
Only a few minutes had passed since they had started to find Dorothy, but it seemed an age to me. My body remained in the room, but my mind was searching the house for the girl I loved. Where was she hidden? Would she be found huddled but alive in some far-off chamber? Or was another and more dreadful tragedy awaiting us? I wondered that I could not join the search. I wondered that even Gilbertine's presence could keep Sinclair from doing so. Didn't he know what, in all probability, this missing girl had with her? Didn't he know what I had suffered, was suffering – ah, what now? She is coming! I can hear them speaking to her. Gilbertine moves from the door, and a young man and woman enter with Dorothy between them.
But what a Dorothy! Years could have made no greater change in her. She looked and she moved like one who is done with life, yet fears the few remaining moments left her. Instinctively we fell back before her; instinctively we followed her with our eyes as, reeling a little at the door, she cast a look of inconceivable shrinking, first at her own bed, then at the group of older people watching her with serious looks from the room beyond. As she did so I noted that she was still clad in her evening dress of gray, and that there was no more color on cheek or lip than in the neutral tints of her gown.
Was it our consciousness of the relief which Mrs. Lansing's death, horrible as it was, must bring to this unhappy girl and of the inappropriateness of any display of grief on her part, which caused the silence with which we saw her pass with forced step and dread anticipation into the room where that image of dead virulence awaited her? Impossible to tell. I could not read my own thoughts. How, then, the thoughts of others!
But thoughts, if we had any, all fled when, after one slow turn of her head toward the bed, this trembling young girl gave a choking shriek and fell, face down, on the floor. Evidently she had not been prepared for the look which made her aunt's still face so horrible. How could she have been? Had it not imprinted itself upon my mind as the one revolting vision of my life? How, then, if this young and tender-hearted girl had been insensible to it! As her form struck the floor Mr. Armstrong rushed forward; I had not the right. But it was not by his arms she was lifted. Sinclair was before him, and it was with a singularly determined look I could not understand and which made us all fall back, that he raised her and carried her in to her own bed, where he laid her gently down. Then, as if not content with this simple attention, he hovered over her for a moment arranging the pillows and smoothing her disheveled hair. When at last he left her, the women rushed forward.
"Not too many of you," was his final adjuration, as, giving me a look, he slipped out into the hall.
I followed him immediately. He had gained the moon-lighted corridor near his own door, where he stood awaiting me with something in his hand. As I approached, he drew me to the window and showed me what it was. It was the amethyst box, open and empty, and beside it, shining with a yellow instead of a purple light, the little vial void of the one drop which used to sparkle within it.
"I found the vial in the bed with the old woman," said he. "The box I saw glittering among Dorothy's locks before she fell. That was why I lifted her."
V
THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
As he spoke, youth with its brilliant hopes, illusions and beliefs passed from me, never to return in the same measure again. I stared at the glimmering amethyst, I stared at the empty vial and, as a full realization of all his words implied seized my benumbed faculties, I felt the icy chill of some grisly horror moving among the roots of my hair, lifting it on my forehead and filling my whole being with shrinking and dismay.
Sinclair, with a quick movement, replaced the tiny flask in its old receptacle, and then thrusting the whole out of sight, seized my hand and wrung it.
"I am your friend," he whispered. "Remember, under all circumstances and in every exigency, your friend."
"What are you going to do with those?" I demanded when I regained control of my speech.
"I do not know."
"What are you going to do with – with Dorothy?"
He drooped his head; I could see his fingers working in the moonlight.
"The physicians will soon be here. I heard the telephone going a few minutes ago. When they have pronounced the old woman dead we will give the – the lady you mention an opportunity to explain herself."
Explain herself, she! Simple expectation. Unconsciously I shook my head.
"It is the least we can do," he gently persisted. "Come, we must not be seen with our heads together – not yet. I am sorry that we two were found more or less dressed at the time of the alarm. It may cause comment."
"She was dressed, too," I murmured, as much to myself as to him.
"Unfortunately, yes," was the muttered reply, with which he drew off and hastened into the hall, where the now thoroughly-aroused household stood in a great group about the excited hostess.
Mrs. Armstrong was not the woman for an emergency. With streaming hair and tightly-clutched kimono, she was gesticulating wildly and bemoaning the break in the festivities which this event must necessarily cause. As Sinclair approached, she turned her tirade on him, and as all stood still to listen and add such words of sympathy or disappointment as suggested themselves in the excitement of the moment, I had an opportunity to note that neither of the two girls most interested was within sight. This troubled me. Drawing up to the outside of the circle, I asked Beaton, who was nearest to me, if he knew how Miss Camerden was.
"Better, I hear. Poor girl, it was a great shock to her."
I ventured nothing more. The conventionality of his tone was not to be mistaken. Our conversation on the veranda was to be ignored. I did not know whether to feel relief at this or an added distress. I was in a whirl of emotion which robbed me of all discrimination. As I realized my own condition, I concluded that my wisest move would be to withdraw myself for a time from every eye. Accordingly, and at the risk of offending more than one pretty girl who still had something to say concerning this terrible mischance, I slid away to my room, happy to escape the murmurs and snatches of talk rising on every side. One bitter speech, uttered by I do not know whom, rang in my ears and made all thinking unendurable. It was this:
"Poor woman! she was angry once too often. I heard her scolding Dorothy again after
