II

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. She had
not, then, removed her jewels or changed her dress. What could have
taken her down to the lake? Why was Lord Airlie's locket so tightly
clinched in her hand?

Lord Airlie, when he was calm enough to speak, suggested that she might
have fallen asleep, tired, before undressing--that in her sleep she
might have walked out, gone to the edge of the lake, and fallen in.

That version spread among the servants. From them it spread like
wildfire around the whole country-side; the country papers were filled
with it, and the London papers afterward told how "the beautiful Miss
Earle" had been drowned while walking in her sleep.

But Lord Airlie's suggestion did not satisfy Ronald Earle; he would not
leave the darkened chamber. Women's gentle hands removed the bright
jewels and the evening dress. Lady Helena, with tears that fell like
rain, dried the long, waving hair, and drew it back from the placid
brow. She closed the eyes, but she could not cross the white hands on
the cold breast. One held the locket in the firm, tight clasp of
death, and it could not be moved.

Ronald would not leave the room. Gentle hands finished their task.
Beatrice lay in the awful beauty of death--no pain, no sorrow moving
the serene loveliness of her placid brow. He knelt by her side. It
was his little Beatrice, this strange, co