It was all over. They never quite remembered in what words they had told her the truth, but they never forgot the wail of agony that came from her lips as she put her white hand to her throat and said, with an awful shudder: “They will try me for murder and then they will put a rope around my neck and hang me!” Then there had followed another season of blank unconsciousness. This time Miss Drusilla had not lifted a finger to help her back to life. She had sternly forbidden Kitty, too. “We both love her,” she said, “Let us have mercy upon her. Let us pray God to take her suffering spirit back to himself.” It did not seem to them that they were doing wrong, they were wrought up to so high a pitch of frenzy by the dread of the future. They stood by her senseless body without lifting a finger and they silently implored Heaven that she might never awaken from her swoon. But their wild wishes were not to be granted. The vitality in the girl’s young frame was not exhausted yet. She struggled back to life unaided, and then they realized all that lay before them, the peril, the danger that they must try to avert. “We must hide her,” they said to each other. “We will take her back to Doctor Fielding. He is strong and wise. He will tell us what to do.” And for the first time since Talbot went away his aunt regretted that he had left her no address to which to write. “I shall be a remorseful, broken-hearted wanderer all over the wide world, and it is not likely that I shall ever return here,” he had said, and in her wrath against him she had let him go, not forseeing this moment when she should vainly long to warn him of his wife’s peril.... The first gray beams of dawn were beginning to glimmer in the sky when three heavily veiled women stole out from the portals of the great house and went swiftly and silently down the long avenue. But fast as they went the law had traveled faster. Two men came in at the tall gate--men in official clothing, with hats drawn over their brows as if ashamed of their mission. One advanced and laid a heavy hand upon one of the vailed figures leaving the house. She gave a startled cry and drew back, but he held her fast. “Mrs. Strangemore, you are under arrest for the murder of Mrs. St. Alban,” he said, in an official tone. CHAPTER XXXII. TALBOT’S SUSPICIONS. All unconscious of the portentous events happening at home, Talbot Strangemore pursued his wanderings from city to city, from clime to clime, in restless search after that fabled Lethean stream in whose waves one may bury all the woeful memories found too heavy to carry through the pilgrimage of life. Oswald Ferris bore him indefatigable company in his strange pursuit.