In vain, in vain! Had the earth opened and swallowed them up, Mr.Parmalee and the baronet's lost bride could not more completely have vanished.
And, meanwhile, dark, ominous whispers rose and circulated from mouth to mouth, by whom originated no one knew.

Sir Everard's frantic jealousy of Mr.Parmalee, his onslaught in the picture-gallery, the threats he had used again and again, overheard by so many, the oath he had sworn to take her life if she ever met the American artist again, his ominous conduct that night, his rushing like a madman to the place of tryst, his returning covered with blood--white, wild, like one insane.

Then the finding of the scabbard, marked with his initials, and his own words: "Blood! Good God! it is hers! She is murdered!" The whispers rose and grew louder and louder; men looked in dark suspicion upon the young lord of Kingsland, and shrunk from him palpably.

But as yet no one was found to openly accuse him.
Toward the close of the second week, a body was washed ashore, some miles down the coast, and the authorities there signified to the authorities of Worrel that the corpse might be the missing lady.
Sir Everard, his mother, and Miss Silver went at once.

But the sight was too horrible to be twice looked at.
The height corresponded, and so did the long waves of flowing hair, and Sybilla Silver, the only one with nerve enough to glance again, pronounced it emphatically to be the body of Harriet, Lady Kingsland.
There was to be a verdict, and the trio remained; and before it commenced, the celebrated detective from Scotland Yard, employed from the first by Sir Everard, appeared upon the scene with crushing news.
He held up a blood-stained dagger before the eye of the baronet: "Do you know this little weapon, Sir Everard ?" Sir Everard looked at it and recognized it at once.
"It is mine," he replied.