were offered
for the body of the murdered woman. In vain, in vain!

Had the earth opened and swallowed them up, Mr. Parmalee and the
baronet's lost bride could not more completely have vanished.

And, meanwhile, dark, ominous whispers rose and circulated from mouth
to mouth, by whom originated no one knew. Sir Everard's frantic
jealousy of Mr. Parmalee, his onslaught in the picture-gallery, the
threats he had used again and again, overheard by so many, the oath he
had sworn to take her life if she ever met the American artist again,
his ominous conduct that night, his rushing like a madman to the place
of tryst, his returning covered with blood--white, wild, like one
insane. Then the finding of the scabbard, marked with his initials,
and his own words:

"Blood! Good God! it is hers! She is murdered!"

The whispers rose and grew louder and louder; men looked in dark
suspicion upon the young lord of Kingsland, and shrunk from him
palpably. But as yet no one was found to openly accuse him.

Toward the close of the second week, a body was washed ashore, some
miles down the coast, and the authorities there signified to the
authorities of Worrel that the corpse might be the missing lady.

Sir Everard, his mother, and Miss Silver went at once. But the sight
was too horrible to be twice looked at.

The height corresponded, and so did the long waves of flowing hair, and
Sybilla Silver, the only one with nerve enough to glance again,
pronounced it emphatically to be the body of Harriet, Lady Kingsland.

There was to be a verdict, and the trio remained; and before it
commenced, the celebrated detective from Scotland Yard, employed from
the first by Sir Everard, appeared upon the scene with crushing news.
He held up a blood-stained dagger before the eye of the baronet:

"Do you know this little weapon, Sir Everard?"

Sir Everard looked at it and recognized it at once.

"It is mine," he replied. "I purchased it last year in Paris. My
initials are upon it."

"So I see," was the dry response.

"How comes it here? Where did you find it?"

The detective eyed him narrowly, almost amazed at his coolness.

"I found it in a very queer place, Sir Everard--lodged in the branches
of an elm-tree, not far from the stone terrace. It's a miracle it was
ever found. I think this little weapon did the deed. I'll go and have
a look at the body."

He went. Yes, there in the region of the heart was a gaping wound.

Th