CHAPTER XXVI.
FOR THE LAST TIME.
My eyes turned immediately in the direction of the secret chamber. Itsentrance was closed, but I knew she was hidden there as well as if thedoor had been open and I had seen her.
What should I do? For a moment I hesitated, then I rushed from the roomand hastened back to Mr. Felt. I found him standing with his face to thedoor, eagerly awaiting my return.
"What has happened?" he asked, importunately. "Your face is as pale asdeath."
"Because death is in the house. Madame--"
"Ah!"
"Lies not in her bed, nor is she to be found in her room. There isanother place, however, in which instinct tells me we shall find her,and if we do, we shall find her dead!"
"In her daughter's room? At her daughter's bedside?"
"No; in the secret chamber."
He gazed at me with wild and haggard aspect.
"You are right," he hoarsely assented. "Let us go; let us seek her; itmay not be too late."
The entrance to this hidden room was closed, as I have said, and as Ihad never assisted at its opening, I did not know where to find thehidden spring by means of which the panel was moved. We had, therefore,to endure minutes of suspense while Mr. Felt fumbled at the wainscoting.The candle I held shook with my agitation, and though I had heardnothing of the storm before, it seemed now as if every gust which cameswooping down upon the house tore its way through my shrinkingconsciousness with a force and menace that scattered the last remnant ofself-possession. Not an instant in the whole terrible day had been morefrightful to me, no, not the moment when I first heard the sliding ofthis very panel and the sound of her crawling form approaching methrough the darkness. The vivid flashes of lightning that shot every nowand then through the cracks of the closely shuttered window, making askeleton of its framework, added not a little to its terror, there beingno other light in the room save that and the flickering, almost dyingflame, with which I strove to aid Mr. Felt's endeavors and onlysucceeded in lighting up his anxious and heavily bedewed forehead.
"Oh, oh!" was my moan; "this is terrible! Let us quit it or go around tomy own room, where there is an open door."
But he did not hear me. His efforts had become frantic, and he tore atthe wainscoting as if he would force it open by main strength.
"You cannot reach her that way," I declared. "Perhaps my hand may bemore skillful. Let me try."
But he only increased his efforts. "I am coming, Marah; I am coming!" hecalled, and at once, as if guided by some angel's touch, his fingersslipped upon the spring. Immediately it yielded, and the opening soeagerly sought for was made.
"Go in," he gasped, "go in."
And so it was that the fate which had forced me against my will, and indespite of such intense shrinking, to pass so frequently into thathideous spot, where death held its revel and Nemesis awaited her victim,drove me thither once again, and, as I now hope, for the last time. For,there upon the floor, and almost in the same spot where we had foundlying the remains of innocent Honora Urquhart, we saw, as mypremonition had told me we should, the outstretched form of the unhappybeing who had usurped her place in life, and now, in retribution of thatact, had laid her head down upon the same couch in death. She waspulseless and quite cold. Upon her mouth her left hand lay pressed, asif, with her last breath, she sought to absorb the pure kiss which hadbeen left there by the daughter she so much loved.