"In life and in death!" she had said, and she had kept her word.
Chapter XLII
While the weeping group still stood there, doctors came; they
looked at the quiet face, so beautiful in death, and said she had
been dead for hours. The words struck those who heard them with
unutterable horror. Dead, while those who loved her so dearly,
who would have given their lives for her, had lain sleeping near
her, unconscious of her doom--dead, while her lover had waited
for her, and her father had been intently thinking of her
approaching wedding.
What had she suffered during the night? What awful storm of
agony had driven her to the lake? Had she gone thither
purposely? Had she wandered to the edge and fallen in, or was
there a deeper mystery? Had foul wrong been done to Lord Earle's
daughter while he was so near her, and yet knew nothing of it?
She still wore her pretty pink evening dress. What a mockery it
looked! The delicate laces were wet and spoiled; the pink
blossoms she had twined in her hair clung to it still; the
diamond arrow Lord Airlie had given her fastened them, a diamond
brooch was in the bodice of her dress, and a costly bracelet
encircled the white, cold arm.
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