[Pg 100]

The hall door opened and Stokes entered.

“Who’s shooting round here?” he said. “I thought it was taboo.”

“That’s just what we want to know. Where were you?”

“Sitting out on the balcony.”

“See anybody?”

“No. I’ve been looking about. I went down the path to the pine grove and round the house but I didn’t see a soul.”

“Why, who could it be?” said Anne. “Aren’t we all”—she looked over the standing figures—“No, we’re not all here. Who’s outside?”

“Mrs. Stokes is.” Shine spoke up. “I saw her walking along the ocean bluffs as I came up from the Point.”

“Sybil is, too,” Mrs. Cornell added. “She went [Pg 101]out just a few minutes ago. I saw her from my window.”

[Pg 101]

“It can’t be either of them.” Bassett’s vexation had given place to a sudden uneasiness. “I don’t understand. Nobody could have come over from the mainland with the tide up. I’ll go out there——”

A sound from outside stopped him. It was a cry in a woman’s voice, close by.

“What’s that?” some one said, and before an answer could come, the cry rose again—a high wailing scream carrying words:

“Sybil! Sybil! Sybil’s dead—Sybil’s killed!”

A clamorous mingling of voices rose from the group, combined in a single up-swelling note of horror. The men rushed for the entrance and met Flora Stokes. She burst in between them, white as the ghost of Cæsar, with her opened mouth a dark cavity.

“Sybil’s murdered—dead—shot.” Each word was projected in a screaming gasp.

Bassett shouted at her, “Where?”

[Pg 102]

[Pg 102]

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