And now, so faintly at first as to be almost imperceptible, something began to mingle itself with the music. The clang of a bell struck at intervals, followed by a long, monotonous call. The sound drew ever nearer. Diana faltered, took up her song again bravely, failed once more, struck a broken note; then hand and voice fell mute. Stillness held them all within the great room, which seemed to wait doom the more inevitably for its bright lights, for its futile air of indifference and gaiety. Through the open window, out of the darkness, gathered a heavy rumble of wheels; then again uprose the call of the bell, the cry of the hoarse voice:— “Bring out your dead!” In the breathless pause, Lady Chillingburgh, rising upon those feet that had been dead to motion so long, stood erect, and flung out her arm with an angry cry; and then it seemed there was naught in the big chair but a huddled heap of drapery. The Terror, petrified on young Hare’s lip, broke out roaring:— “She’s dead also! Grandam’s dead! The plague! She’s dead of the plague!” He made one leap for the door, his screams awaking confusion in the house. Within Lady Chillingburgh’s drawing-room the drama was quickly played. Diana bent in anguish over her grandmother, crying:— “She has swooned! For Heaven’s sake, madame, as you are a woman, give me your assistance!” But Lionel had sprung to her side:— “Back, Diana! Away out of this room. Our grandmother is dead.” “The—the sickness?” she faltered, with white lips. “The plague? Not here—” he answered her. “But there!” He flung his pointing finger toward Jeanne de Mantes, who turned her face with a crazy laugh toward them. Diana recoiled a pace, threw out her hands as if seeking support, and Rockhurst, ever close to her, caught her in his arms as she swooned. A sudden, blind, all-encompassing fury fell upon Ratcliffe. “Stay, my Lord Constable!” he cried fiercely, and made a spring to wrest the unconscious burden from the hated man’s embrace. “Ah, Rakehell Rockhurst, not so fast!” The table was between them. He was wrenching at his sword as he dashed round it, pushing Jeanne de Mantes aside; when, with her soft, bare arms, she clutched his throat from behind. It was perhaps his horror of the embrace that robbed him of the power of resistance; perhaps it was the strength lent by the delirium that rendered her burning clasp irresistible. He struggled, yet was powerless. His starting eyes beheld the Lord Constable pass out of the room to the garden, bearing Diana into the night. He gathered his energy for a last shout in the hope of raising the household to his help; but the hot arms were writhing closer about him, the scented curls beat softly against his cheek. The creature was laughing, pressing upward her disfigured face, devouring him with her mad, unseeing eyes, striving to reach his lips for the kiss of death.—And she was raving:— “At last, O Rockhurst!… _O mon beau Démon!_”