The confusion below seeming to increase with every moment, naturally excited her surprise; and she commanded one of her attendants to learn its cause.

Already terrified, none seemed inclined to obey, till a young girl, high spirited, and dauntless almost as Isabella herself, departed of her own free will, and in a few minutes returned, pale and trembling, with the dread intelligence, that Don Ferdinand Morales lay murdered in the hall, and that Arthur Stanley was his murderer.
Isabella paused not a moment, though the shock was so terrible that for the minute she became faint and sick, and hastily quitting her apartments, she entered the great hall at the moment the prisoner was being borne from it.

Stupefied with contending feelings.

Ferdinand did not perceive her entrance.

The nobles, drawn together in little knots, were conversing in low eager tones, or endeavoring to reduce the tumultuary soldiery to more order; and the Queen moved on unperceived, till she stood beside the corpse.