She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his
nightgown, (for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing
the entrance of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty,
his fixed and closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key,
from the other the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had
been a little before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired
state of his mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as
desperate energy as if its amount had been necessary to his actual
existence.
"It is in vain--it is in vain," said the daughter, desisting from her
fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually
dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the
murderers; "It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be
thus; and now I witness it!"
She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only
to dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, "Accursed be ye
both, for you are the causes of this deed!"
Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should
be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as
well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted
him sharply.
"Be silent," she said, "be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own
heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this
before me? I say, be silent," she said again, and in a yet sterner
tone--"Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying
on her knees?"
Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt
not the less the embarrassment of his own situation.
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