“Do try to command yourself, Lord Arondelle.  This is, indeed, a most awful shock.  It would have been awful at any time, but on your wedding day it comes with double violence.  But do summon all your strength of mind, for her sake.  Think of her.  She came to this room in her bridal dress to call her father, that he might get ready to take her to the altar, to give her to you, and she found him here murdered—­weltering in his blood.  It was enough to have killed her, or unseated her reason forever,” said the lady, as she busied herself with unfastening the rich, white, satin bodice of the wedding robe.

“Oh, Salome!  Salome! that I could bear this sorrow for you!  Oh, my darling, that all my love should be powerless to save you from a sorrow like this!” cried the young man, dropping his head upon his clenched hands.

“My lord,” continued Lady Belgrade, who was now applying a vial of sal ammonia to her patient’s nostrils:  “my dear Lord Arondelle, rouse yourself for her sake!  She has no father, brother, or male relative to take direction of affairs in this awful crisis of her life.  You, her betrothed husband, should do it—­must do it!  Rouse yourself at once.  Look at this stupefied and gaping crowd of people!  Do not be like one of them.  Something must be done at once.  Do WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE!” she cried with sudden vehemence.

“I know what should be done, and I will do it,” said the young man, in a tone of mournful resolution.  Then turning to the crowd that filled the chamber of horror, he said: 

“My friends we must leave this room for the present to the care of Lady Belgrade and her female attendants.”

Then to the dowager he said: 

“My lady, let one of your maids cover that body with a sheet and let no one move it by so much as an inch, until the arrival of the coroner.  As soon as it is possible to do so, you will of course have Miss Levison conveyed to her own chamber.  But when you leave this room pray lock it up, and place a servant before the door as sentry, that nothing may be disturbed before the inquest.”

Lastly addressing the stupefied house-steward, he said: 

“McRath, come with me.  The castle doors must all be closed, and no one permitted to learn the arrival of a police force, which must be immediately summoned.”

So saying, after a last agonized gaze upon the insensible form of his bride, he left the room of horrors, followed by the house-steward and all the male intruders.

The news of the murder spread through the castle and all over the island, carrying consternation with it.  Yet the wedding guests outside, who were quite at liberty to go, showed no disposition to do so.  They had come to take part in a joyous wedding festival—­they remained, held by the strange fascination of ghastly interest that hangs over the scene of a murder—­and such a murder!

So, the crowd, instead of diminishing, greatly increased.  Peasants from the hills around, who, having had no wedding garments, had forborne to appear at the feast, now came in their tattered plaids, impelled by an eager curiosity to gaze upon the walls of the castle, and see and hear all they could concerning the mysterious murder that had been perpetrated within it.