Then she turned herself about and struck at him with the dagger--and
never saw I such a face as was hers at the moment.
He fell heavily, yet held her even in death, so that she had to wrench
herself free, with a shriek that rings yet in my ears on a night when
the wind wails over the rainy moors. She rushed past me unheeding, and
fled down the hall like a hunted creature, and I heard the heavy door
clang hollowly behind her.
As for me, I stood there looking at the dead man, for I could neither
move nor speak and was like to have died of horror. And presently I
knew nothing, nor did I come to my recollection for many a day, when I
lay abed, sick of a fever and more like to die than live.
So that when at last I came out from the shadow of death, my Uncle
Hugh had been long cold in his grave, and the hue and cry for his
guilty wife was well nigh over, since naught had been seen or heard of
her since she fled the country with her foreign lover.
When I came rightly to my remembrance, they questioned me as to what I
had seen and heard in the Red Room. And I told them as best I could,
though much aggrieved that to my questions they would answer nothing
save to bid me to stay still and think not of the matter.
Then my mother, sorely vexed over my adventures--which in truth were
but sorry ones for a child--took me home. Nor would she let me keep
Alicia's chain, but made away with it, how I knew not and little
cared, for the sight of it was loathsome to me.
It was many years ere I went again to Montressor Place, and I never
saw the Red Room more, for Mrs. Montressor had the old wing torn down,
deeming its sorrowful memories dark heritage enough for the next
Montressor.
So, Grandchild, the sad tale is ended, and you will not see the Red
Room when you go next month to Montressor Place. The swallows still
build under the eaves, though--I know not if you will understand their
speech as I did.