Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/106

 Fenella watched the first sentinels of the morning, pointing airy fingers here and there; one trembling sun-glance falling upon the silver hilt of the red dagger; another seeking, as it were, to find out the hideous face of the dead man. But she uttered no word, only stood there still and quiet, like some strangely sculptured statue waiting to be called to life—as she was presently called by an inspector of police and the manager of the hotel after she had given the alarm.

Aroused to action, she took upon herself all the odium of her husband's deed—took it upon herself with the queen-like dignity of an avenging angel.

"This man attempted my life, and I killed him!"

And they knew, those common men, that when she said her life she meant her honor. To her that was her life, and they were conscious of her great beauty, even as she stood before them, pale as a ghost, and with hot, burning eyes.

The officer noticed that there was no evidence of a struggle; not a curtain was awry, no chair was out of its place, the carpet was unruffled, the room was neat and trim as if nothing unusual had taken place. Before touching the body, he wrote these facts down in his book. Then, laying his hand upon the bundle of clothes, he exposed the dead face of the count, and requested the hotel manager to admit his two attendant