cruel wound.

A gasping, inarticulate sort of groan comes heavily from every lip.
Old Hooper takes her wrist between his shaking fingers. Stilled
forever, already with the awful chill of death. In the crystal light
of the moon the sweet young face has never looked fairer, calmer, more
peaceful than now.

The old butler straightens himself up, ashen gray.

"It's too true," he says, with a sort of sob. "O Lord, have mercy on
us--it's too true! She's dead! She's murdered!"

He drops the wrist he holds, the little jewelled, dead hand falls limp
and heavy. He puts his own hands over his face and sobs aloud:

"Who will tell Sir Victor? O my master! my dear young master!"

No one speaks--a spell of great horror has fallen upon them. Murdered
in their midst, in their peaceful household--they cannot comprehend it.
At last--

"_Where is Miss Catheron_?" asks a sombre voice.

No one knows who speaks; no one seems to care; no one dare reply.

"Where is Inez Catheron?" the voice says again.

Something in the tone, something in the ghastly silence that follows,
seems to arouse the butler. Since his tenth year he has been in the