He lay before her so death-like, so ghastly, so haggard, that the stoniest enemy might have relented—­the pallid shadow of the handsome, happy bridegroom of two short months ago.

“I have kept my oath,” she thought.  “I have wreaked the vengeance I have sworn.  If I left him forever now, the manes of Zenith the gypsy might rest appeased.  But the astrologer’s prediction—­ah! the work must go on to the appalling end.”

Early in the afternoon arrived Lady Kingsland and Mildred, in a frightful state of excitement and horror.  Harriet murdered!  The tragic story had been whispered through The Grange until it reached their ears, thrilling them to the core of their hearts with terror.

Miss Silver met them—­calm, grave, inscrutable.

“I am afraid it is true,” she said, “awfully incredible as it seems.  Sir Everard fainted stone-dead, my lady, at sight Of the blood upon the terrace.”

“Great heavens! it is horrible!  That unfortunate girl.  And my son, Sybilla, where is he?”

“Asleep in his room, my lady.  I administered an opiate.  His very life, I think, depended on it.  He will not awake for some hours.  Do not disturb him.  Will you come up to your old rooms and remove your things?”

They followed her.  They had come to stay until the suspense was ended—­to take care of the son and brother.

Lady Kingsland wrung her hands in a paroxysm of mortal anguish in the solitude of her own room.

“Oh, my God!” she cried, “have mercy and spare!  My son, my son, my son!  Would God I might die to save you from the worse horrors to come!”

All that day, all the next, and the next, and the next, the fruitless search for the murdered bride was made.  All in vain; not the faintest trace was to be obtained.

Mr. Parmalee was searched for high and low.  Immense rewards were offered for the slightest trace of him—­immense rewards were offered for the body of the murdered woman.  In vain, in vain!

Had the earth opened and swallowed them up, Mr. Parmalee and the baronet’s lost bride could not more completely have vanished.

And, meanwhile, dark, ominous whispers rose and circulated from mouth to mouth, by whom originated no one knew.  Sir Everard’s frantic jealousy of Mr. Parmalee, his onslaught in the picture-gallery, the threats he had used again and again, overheard by so many, the oath he had sworn to take her life if she ever met the American artist again, his ominous conduct that night, his rushing like a madman to the place of tryst, his returning covered with blood—­white, wild, like one insane.  Then the finding of the scabbard, marked with his initials, and his own words: 

“Blood!  Good God! it is hers!  She is murdered!”

The whispers rose and grew louder and louder; men looked in dark suspicion upon the young lord of Kingsland, and shrunk from him palpably.  But as yet no one was found to openly accuse him.