Everything was old and grand, and full of storied interest.

And there, on the wall, was the crest of the house--the uplifted hand grasping a dagger--and the motto, in old Norman French, "Strike once, and strike well." It is a very fine thing to be a baronet--a Kingsland of Kingsland, with fifteen thousand a year, and the finest old house in the county; but if Death will stalk grimly over your threshold and snatch away the life you love more than your own, then even that glory is not omniscient.
For this wintery midnight, while Sir Jasper Kingsland walks moodily up and down--up and down--Lady Kingsland, in the chamber above, lies ill unto death.
An hour passes--the clock in the turret and the buhl toy on the stone mantel toll solemnly one.

The embers drop monotonously through the grate--a dog bays deeply somewhere in the quadrangle below--the wailing wind of coming morning sighs lamentingly through the tossing copper-beeches, and the roar of the surf afar off comes ever and anon like distant thunder.

The house is silent as the tomb--so horribly silent that the cold drops start out on the face of the tortured man.
Who knows?
Death has been on the threshold of that upper chamber all night, waiting for his prey.

This awful hush may be the paean that proclaims that he is master! A tap at the door.