“Liar! You said you knew nothing of her? You swore you had no brother. You took the light from my eyes with your story of a stranger, and her shame.” Before any one could reach him, the jabbering thing had sprung at Erceldonne’s back, and stabbed him with that very dagger that had lain so long idle in his own house. A shriek ran through the chapel, but it was not Lord Erceldonne’s; he lay quiet on the stone floor, face down. It was Salome, whom he had wronged, whose life had been hell through him; and the shriek was savage, exultant. “Be silent,” said Andria fiercely. As she spoke, the madman flew by her, running and leaping like a monkey, two of the strange men at his heels. What was the matter with Beryl, that she neither spoke nor came to her; that she never looked up as Heriot laid a hand on her shoulder? Had they drugged her--was she---- Andria Erle ran to the strange figure that was hidden under the lace veil. “Beryl!” she cried, “it’s I, Andria! You’re safe!” She put the veil back from the face and stared aghast. A strange woman stood before her, painted, hollow-eyed; her head covered with long locks cut from Beryl’s hair, wound deftly round it. “Father! Father Maurice!” cried Andria, in the one breathless instant before the priest could speak and tell her this strange bride was part of his last night’s work. She turned and ran from the church like an arrow from the bow after some one else who had also stared unbelievingly at the false bride. All she thought was that this was not Beryl, and that Raimond had had a minute’s start of her in the confusion, when all eyes were on the escaping madman and the dead man on the floor. Across the wet grass, in the light of the wet morning sun, she ran, into the desolate house. Up-stairs, through endless passages, sobbing, stumbling, calling, she went in wild fear. And each door she opened showed an empty room, each passage led to nothing. “Beryl!” she screamed. “Beryl!” and from somewhere heard a sound. She was here, then. And she had read Raimond’s face aright. “Heriot! Father Maurice!” Andria shrieked from a stair-window, and dared not wait for their coming. She ran on blindly, and burst into the room that was Beryl’s and Mrs. Fuller’s. There, having waited irresolute a little too long, instead of running to the carriage Father Maurice had told her would be waiting by the chapel, was Beryl Corselas struggling hideously with a man, who had also a carriage waiting with a bullet-headed boy for driver. “Raimond!” Andria cried. “Run--they are coming! Let her go.” At her voice he let Beryl go; stood an instant, staring. “Go!” said Andria, in a dreadful whisper. “Go! Thank God that I am your wife, and must hold my tongue. It is my shame that I ever loved you.” “Andria,” said her husband softly, very easily. “The Lovely Andria!” He came toward her, with the long, easy step she had loved. “Devil!” he cried, and struck her between the eyes.