"And Monsieur Herbert? Is _he_ dead?" "_He_ dead!" repeated Mr. Dare in an accent of alarm, fearing possibly she might have a motive for the question. "What should bring him also dead? Mademoiselle, why do you ask it?" "Eh, me, I don't know," she answered. "I am bewildered with it all. Why should he be dead, and not the other? Why should either be dead?" Mr. Dare saw that she did look bewildered; scarcely in her senses. She had a white handkerchief in her hand, and was wiping the moisture from her scarcely less white face. "Did you witness the quarrel between them?" he inquired, supposing that she had done so by her words. "If I did, I not tell," she vehemently answered, her English less clear than usual. "If Joseph say--I hear him say it to you just now--that Monsieur Herbert took a knife to his brother, I not give testimony to it. What affair is it of mine, that I should tell against one or the other? Who did it?--who killed him?"--she rapidly continued. "It was not Monsieur Herbert. No, I will say always that it was not Monsieur Herbert. He would not kill his brother." "I do not think he would," earnestly spoke Mr. Dare. "No, no, no!" said mademoiselle, her voice rising with her emphasis. "He never kill his brother; he not enough _méchant_ for that." "Perhaps he has not come in?" cried Mr. Dare, catching at the thought. Betsy Garter answered the words. She had stolen up in the general restlessness, and halted there. "He must be come in, sir," she said; "else how could his cloak be in the dining-room? They are saying that it's Mr. Herbert's cloak which was under Mr. Anthony." "What has Mr. Herbert's cloak to do with his coming in or not coming in?" sharply asked Mr. Dare. "He would not be wearing his cloak this weather." "But he does wear it, sir," returned Betsy. "He went out in it to-night." "Did you see him?" sternly asked Mr. Dare. "If I hadn't seen him, I couldn't have told that he went out in it," independently replied Betsy, who, like her mother, was fond of maintaining her own opinion. "I was looking out of the window in Miss Adelaide's room, and I saw Mr. Herbert go out by way of the dining-room window towards the entrance-gate." "Wearing his cloak?" "Wearing his cloak," assented Betsy, "I hoped he was hot enough in it." The words seemed to carry terrible conviction to Mr. Dare's mind. Unwilling to believe the girl, he sought Joseph and asked him. "Yes, for certain," Joseph answered. "Mr. Herbert, as he was coming downstairs to go out, stopped to speak to me, sir, and he was fastening his cloak on then." Minny ran up, bursting with grief and terror as she seized upon Mr. Dare. "Papa! papa! is it true?" she sobbed. "Is what true, child?" "That it was Herbert? They are saying so."