United States or Ecuador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He had been informed of Lady Carset's illness, just as he was leaving the castle, and came back only to hear that she was gone. The scene upon which he looked was something worse than a death-chamber. "Ask him if he did not see this poniard in her room while she lay unburied in the house."
It will be time enough when all this tumult about the heirship has abated. And perhaps it will be best to let papa find it out in some natural way, when he will, I hope, be anxious to recognize you as Lady Carset's guest, and make atonement for his harshness at Oakhurst." "What a wise little diplomat you have become, Clara!" "Yes, I think so.
"Because it was this woman who murdered your first wife, Lady Carset's daughter!" More than the stillness of death settled upon that room. The two girls hushed their sobs, and clung closer together in awful silence. The man and the woman, on whom these words had fallen like a rock hurled from some great high stood living and human, but struck into marble by a single blow.
She was talking earnestly to Hepworth Closs, who had refused Lady Carset's invitation to take up his quarters at the castle, but was staying at the public house down in the village, until after the festival, at which Clara still refused to be introduced as sole heiress of the broad domain on which they stood. "Let us be patient," she said.
When Clara reached the castle she found a letter waiting for her. It was from Margaret, who was still in London, at Olympia's house. Clara read this letter with a very thoughtful face, and went at once to Lady Carset's room, with the letter in her pocket and painful anxiety in her heart. Lady Carset had come out of her sleep, wonderfully refreshed and cheerful.
"Come," said Clara, as the young traveller took off her tiny hat, and began to smooth the hair back from her temples. "I am so impatient to have grandmamma see you. That will do that will do. Come, now." The two girls went out together, Clara leading the way, and directly stood in the dim light of Lady Carset's chamber.
"I left America at once on learning this, bringing Lady Hope's papers and Lady Carset's jewels with me. Olympia was in England, and, no doubt, your daughter was with her. First I came here, and gave up the trust that had become a heavy, heavy burden. Then I went in search of my young lady. The time had come when she might claim her title and her rights, without violating her mother's directions.
As Lady Hope opened the door, Clara stood upon the threshold, ready for her journey. She knew that this letter was the first that her father had received from Lady Carset for years, and was curious to know its meaning. She could not remember when Lady Carset's name had been spoken in that house without bitterness, and was astonished to hear the cheerful animation with which it was spoken now.
Hannah Yates lost all the unnatural strength that had brought her among this splendor. She knew that it was scarcely possible that she could speak with Lady Carset that night, if she could, indeed, gain admittance to the castle; but she went around to a back entrance, and so made her way, unseen, to the tower-chamber, which opened into Lady Carset's dressing-room.
Word Of The Day