CHAPTER LVIII.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 104, 30 May 1885, Page 4

CHAPTER LVIII.

" THEN NO ONE MUST KNOW! ", "There was nothinK lying at my feet Bat lifeless flesh and bono !" Hood. was the bride's voice. What had happened ? What did it mean ? Miss Dorothy flung on her wrapper, thrust her feet in slippers, and hurried out into the hall to the apartment whence the cry proceeded. She reached it just as the servants with scared faces came trooping down the back stair-way. The door was only a little ajar. Pu«h it open she could not. A suddeu indefinable dread of what might lie beyond took possession of her, numbed her to her finger-tips. The servants surrounded her. "What is it, Miss Dorothy?" "Is it burglary?" Is the colonel hurt ?" But before she could answer thero came from behind the half-closed door a storm of entreating, despairing, inarticulate moans. Miss Vernell flung out her hands. " Go in »" murmered she, I can't !" Thus commissioned, Roberts boldly pushed open the door and entered. He recoiled with an exclamation of. horror. " Good Lord a-mussy I" 11 What is it ?" whispered Miss Dorothy. Receiving no reply, she mustered her courage for a final effort, and made her way past him into the room. The gas still burned low. Through the uncurtained and unshuttered windows the grey light of dawn was creeping. The corners still harboured mysterious shadows. On the broad, cushion-piled lounge in the bay-window lay the figure of a man, the upflung arm and distorted limbs of which were awfully sffirlesa, awfully rigid. On the floor lay a tumbled crimson comforter. Crouching beside the lounge, her neglige of creamy cashmere sweeping far out on the mossy carpet, knelt a woman weeping, moaning, wringing her hands, frantic with grief and terror. This was the picture Miss Dorothy saw as she came forward, one which shall never till her own heart is stilled in death be quite blotted from her brain. "Letitia!" But the words died on her lips. She was beside her now — beside it ! One glance told her all. She fell back crying, trembling, terrified. "James ! Oh, James !" The words seemed to pierce the watcher's anguish— recall her to consciousness. She lifted her head— turned slowly. With the Jacqueminot Glow washed off, and the flush of her favourite stimulant faded, the handsome brunette face was almost unrecognisable in its ghastline^s. She stumbled to her feet as her wild eyes fell upon Miss Dorothy, staggered toward her with hands outstretched. In the door-way were gathered the servants, an awed audience. "He is dead!" she cried, brokenly. " Oh, Dorothy, Dorothy ! he is dead— my poor darling !" But never a word could Aunt Dolly say for her choking sobs. " And all alone !" wailed on the widow but so lately a bride. "To die alone ! If I had only been with him. He may have I needed me— called me. Sa fatigued was I, slept soundly. Oh, the thought is terriblo ! My own dear one dead— dead !" And she flung herself down again beside the lounge and buried her face on the breast of the corpse in a fresh tempest of grief. The domestics looked at each other in dismayed commisseration. It was frightfully hard on her. But so lately married, too. And she seemed to think the world and all of the colonel. It ! was no wonder she took on so— the poor, poor lady ! Miss Dorothy approached the head of the lounge, and stood looking down on the face upon the dark-blue pillow. An unprepossessing face in life, it was a singularly repellent one in death. In the pallid light which fell acros3 it, hair, beard, and skin seemed all the samo greyish hue. The jaw had fallan ; the half-open eyes were quite glossy. The whole countenance seemed set in a frown of startled pain. The numbness which had crept over Miss Dorothy just without the door had increased Both mental and physical faculties seemed paralysed by the shock. It was as though the very blood in her veins A\as slowly congealing. Even dowa her cheeks the great tears ceased to roll. " As soon as I awakened and remembered that we had left James asleep here," went on Mrs Vernell, in a hoarse voice, her face still hidden, "I came in. You know how ill and nervous he was feeling all day yesterday, Dorothy. I thought I would find him bright and well, and instead— oh, instead— this f" She raised herself erect and pointed downward with a forlorn gesture. Roberts went up to her. " Shall I send for a doctor, Mrs Vernell?" She did not appear to hear him. Her hands were claspea, her breast was heaving tumultuously, her glance was fixed on the rigid face of "him who had been for one week her husband. He looked back at his fellow-servants. In answer to their emphatic nods he repeated his question, and this time a tone louder. Shestarted— became awareof his presence. "A doctor?" she repeated blankly. "Of course. Yes— no. Where is the use V Respectfully he intimated that in cases of sudden death it was customary to call one — and then there was the necessity for a certificate. " Certainly. If it is right, go— send !" And then once more she broke down in a fit of loud and hysterical weeping. One of the servants went softly up to the chandelier and turned out the gas. Little need was there for it. The new day was brightening rapidly. The moon was filled with the clear but dismal light of early morning. The corners had lost their haunting shadows. Out above the lake's dim line bars of lemon were broadening. A woman in the centre of the group by the entrance spoke in a low voice to those around her. " Go and get the house in order and all your usual work over !" she urged. " You can do no good by remaining, and there will be enough strangers here when this affair gets out to give' you many extra duties" " She's right !" declared Roberts. " Come on— all of you !" As they went unwillingly away, the woman who bad addressed them crossed the room to where Mrs Vernell stood. " Come and lie down," she whispered. " You are wearing yourself out. And you'll need all your strength for the next few days. . Come ! and I'll g© and get you a cup of coffee." The widow raised her haggard face and reddened eyes apt the sound of the familiar, hesitant voice. " Oh, Hilaria !" ehe moaned. " Isn't it fearful? oh, Hilaria IJ

The woman pressed her fingers on the i eyelids of the dead, then Btrove to close the t stiff jaw. A . „, v "He haa been dead for some time !' she < said. ! "Oh, Hilaria!" ' "Come, madam." And as though mechanically and blindly ] she went. , , . , , No sooner had the maid seen her safely In i the adjoining room, than she came back, cloßing the door behind her. ' She went up to where sat Miss V crnell i still as the dead himself. She bent over her. ! "Miss Dorothy I" Mutely she looked up at her. •• Miss Dorothy, dear," she whispered on, and now the voice was no longer stammering, bat quick and clear, " don't take it so much to heart. It is not as though he were young and cut off like this. Just think how much worse it would be if it were Miss Vella or Mr Voyle. Or " The coming words were arrested on her lip. Miss Dorothy clutched her hand suddenly, convulsively. f « Voyle ! Guila, that sit -that's what I dread - oh, Guila ! He was the last to see his undo alive." " Miss Dorothy !" "Ho came in late last night," nodding and choking over the rapid words. " And he told mo he had come in here, and accused— well, never mind! The excitement must have brought on a spasm which caused death. That is what troubles me even more than the death itself, that he should indirectly be responsible." Guila laid her hand detainingly on Miss Vernell's arm. "Miss Dorothy !" "Yes," tl Who else knows of this affair ?" " Roberts knows he was here." " Hush ! not co loud ! walls have ears. But about his speaking with the colonel !" " He did not really speak with him, only to him, for James did not answer him, he saya. Perhaps," almost hopefully, "he was dead then." „„•«•* " Hush !" again cautioned the maid, JNot above your breath. But this fact— that he was dead at the time— could never be proved. " "No." "You haven't answered me yet. "Who else knows that he was in this room alone with his uncle last night ?" " Only I." The woman laid both her hands on the little old lady's shoulders, and put her mouth close to her ear. "Then no one must know— need know ! You hear, Miss Dorothy !" she actually shook her in her emphatic excitement. "If questioned, you can admit his having been with you, but you shall say no word of his having been with the colonel later than anyone else last night. You understand ?" She nodded. " Yes. If they knew, they would say the — the accusation had so agitated the colonel that it had brought on " Guila interrupted her with an impatient | and contradictory shake of her head. "No, no ! if that were all ! They would say that in some scientific and bloodless way he had murdered him !" How near to the truth she came in that random speech of hers she did not dream. With a little cry Miss Dorothy fell back in her chair, panting. " That ! Good Heaven !" Footsteps were ascending the stair. The woman moved away. "Remember! his life may be in your hands. Don't fling it away !" And just then Roberts ushered into the room the doctor — suave, deferential, professionally alert.