She was lying at full length upon her left side, her face being turned from them, lying in a somewhat singular attitude, Wilfrid thought; for both arms were extended behind her back in such fashion as almost to suggest that they were tied at the wrists; distance and the twilight prevented him from seeing clearly whether such were the case. “One of the Baroness’s girls asleep?” said Beauvais, taking the cigar from his teeth. “_Parbleu!_ she chooses an odd hour and an odd place for sleeping.” Thinking to rouse her, he gave utterance to a shout, loud enough, one would have thought, to awaken the soundest sleeper. The woman did not stir. The doctor looked at Wilfrid; Wilfrid looked at the doctor. There was something weird in the sight of this lonely figure as it lay there, silent and motionless, in the ghostly starlight, with the river plashing faintly at its feet, above its head the night-wind sighing through the pines. Strange that both men hesitated to take the few paces necessary to solve their doubts! The doctor perhaps would have been puzzled to give _his_ reason. Far different was it with Wilfrid; he hung back from facing the truth. All the fear he had ever known, gathered up and sublimated into one tense, overwhelming sensation, would have failed to equal the dread that fell upon him at this moment as he discerned that the figure had fair, sunny hair and a costume whose silvery grey colour was scarcely distinguishable from the sand it touched! What if it should be——? Suddenly the doctor, throwing away his cigar, set off at a brisk run in the direction of the figure, an action that caused Wilfrid to run likewise. He was the first to reach the silent woman, and saw that her ankles and wrists were bound with cords. The face was hidden by a mask of grey silk that had lost its crispness, apparently by saturation in water, for it adhered to her features like a second skin. It had slipped downwards a little, so that the eyes and mouth were hidden. Wilfrid stooped and lifted the mask. And it was the Princess, cold and dead! CHAPTER XXV THE DOCTOR’S PLOT When Wilfrid saw the Princess manifesting every sign of death, there came over him that strange feeling that often follows a fall from a great height, a numbing of the limbs and a dulling of the senses. He could hear the melancholy lap-lap of the water upon the sands and the distant strains of music, without understanding the origin of the sounds; he knew that he was supporting the head of the Princess, not because his arm felt the weight of what he was holding, but because he could see the arm performing the task; he knew that he was looking down upon a face, beautiful and still, but could not for the moment tell why the sight of this face should cause him to feel a gnawing pain at his heart.