"My sister! Where is my sister?"

The captain made a hurried movement toward the rear and then with
the laudable intention, doubtless, of preparing her for the ghastly
sight which awaited her, returned and opened a way for her into the
drawing-room. But she was not to be turned aside from her course.
Passing him by, she made directly for the library which she entered
with a bound. Struck by her daring, we all crowded up behind her,
and, curious brutes that we were, grouped ourselves in a semicircle
about the doorway as she faltered toward her sister's outstretched
form and fell on her knees beside it. Her involuntary shriek and
the fierce recoil she made as her eyes fell on the long white ribbon
trailing over the floor from her sister's wrist, struck me as voicing
the utmost horror of which the human soul is capable. It was as
though her very soul were pierced. Something in the fact itself,
something in the appearance of this snowy ribbon tied to the scarce
whiter wrist, seemed to pluck at the very root of her being; and
when her glance, in traveling its length, lighted on the death dealing
weapon at its end, she cringed in such apparent anguish that we
looked to see her fall in a swoon or break out into delirium. We
were correspondingly startled when she suddenly burst forth with
this word of stern command:

"Untie that knot! Why do you leave that dreadful thing fast to her?
Untie it, I say, it is killing me; I can not bear the sight." And
from trembling she passed to shuddering till her whole body shook
convulsively.

The captain, with much consideration, drew back the hand he had
impulsively stretched toward the ribbon.