Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/67

 "Yes. I knew you would. Your wife told you what"

"As well as she could, sir. Something has happened to her ladyship"

"She is dead. I came to look for her, and I found—this."

He turned, facing toward the Tower as if by an effort, and walking with his head down. Tom followed, catching up with him, and keeping by his side.

The door leading into the ground-floor room of the Tower was open, though it was supposed to be locked always, as Tom Barnard well knew. He went into the small, square room, close on Sir Ian's heels, and saw Lady Hereward lying along the floor on her back. She lay so that, as they entered, the top of her head was turned toward them; and they saw her face, as it were, upside down. An expression of agony and despair seemed to be carved upon the stony features, and so terrible was it to see, that Barnard cried out. Sir Ian made no sound, but a slight shudder convulsed his muscles.

There was blood on the floor and on her delicate gray dress, a little, too, on her soft brown hair, which was scarcely disarranged, but none on the marble-white face. Her eyes were wide open, and raised, as if she had died looking at something above her head, and gazing down into them it was as if they stared up