CHAPTER VI.
A HORRIBLE MYSTERY ON THE WEDDING DAY.
On the day before the wedding all the preparations were completed.
The grounds around the castle, paradisial in their own natural beauty under this heavenly blue sky of June, were adorned with all that art and taste and wealth could bring to enhance their attractions in honor of the occasion.
Triumphal arches of rare exotic flowers were erected at intervals along the avenue leading from the castle courtyard down to the bridge that spanned Loch Lone from the island, to the mountain hamlet on the main land.

The bridge itself was canopied with evergreens, and starred with roses.

Every house in the little hamlet of Lone was so wreathed and festooned with flowers as to look like a fairy bower.

The little gothic church, said to be coeval in history with the castle itself, was decorated within and without as for an Easter or Christmas festival.

And the only inn of the place, an antiquated but most comfortable public house, known for centuries as the "Hereward Arms," was almost covered with flags, banners and bushes, in honor of the presence of the Duke of Hereward, and the Marquis of Arondelle, especially, and of other noble guests who had arrived there to assist at the wedding of the next day.
Yes, the expectant bridegroom and his aged father were at the Hereward Arms.