She comprehended the ghastly truth--here, almost at the gates of Gray Gables, murder had been done! Recoiling with a strangled cry, she looked down at the body at her feet--the ugly, twisted body, the hideous face, the evil eyes set in a ghastly stare of death. On the instant she recognized him--Miser Farnham! He was dead--murdered almost at the gates of Gray Gables, while on his way to claim his bride, to score his horrid triumph and break two loving hearts. It was a dastardly deed, and fate or retribution had met him on his way. But who had done that awful deed? Some enemy, of course--perhaps the wicked old fortune-teller. But, though she trembled and shuddered, it came to her with a thrill of joy that now she was free--now Dorian need never know the secret of which she was so bitterly ashamed--that she had been for one cruel year a wife in name to the wicked miser. She would fly back to the house--she would steal up to her own room and remove the white dress with its blood-stains where she had slipped and fallen on the body. No one should know that she had found the murdered man there. With a stifled moan she turned to retrace her steps, and--ran almost into the arms of the two men coming in pursuit. In the near distance they had seen her kneeling there, they came up just as she turned to fly. "Who is this? What is this?" cried the soldier, bending down over the body at his feet. Nita answered with a hysterical sob: "Look, I found him lying here when I was flying to cast myself in the sea. It is--it is--my guardian--and some one has--murdered--him!" with the last words she shuddered violently, and fell unconscious at Dorian's feet. He lifted her up in his arms, and his hands were wet with the blood-spatters on her white gown--the bridelike robe that looked so stainless when she stood there by the fountain a few minutes ago. "I will carry her up to the house, Van Hise, and you had better remain here by the body until I send some one back to help remove it," he said, in a shaken voice, turning away. At that moment there appeared on the scene the hobbling form of Meg, the fortune-teller. After a few moments of unconsciousness she had come to herself in the lonely cabin, and curiosity had induced her to follow the old miser up to Gray Gables. She stopped short with a shrill cry, and, stooping down, examined the dead, drawing back with a shudder as her hand became wet with blood. "Ugh! it is the old miser--and murdered! Who has done this?" she croaked dismally. Van Hise explained to her that he did not know anything about it, that Miss Farnham found the body there but a moment ago. "And it is not more than half an hour since he left my cabin alive and well, going up to Gray Gables to keep an important appointment with Nita," croaked the old woman. She looked after the retreating form of Dorian, and sneered: "Perhaps she grew impatient and came out to meet the old man, did she not?"