I didn't!
She's lying on Mr. Kent's grave, and I don't know who she is."
He gave another cry for his mother and tried to get away, but Giles, followed by Trim, led him up the path.
"Take me to the grave," he said in a low voice.
"I won't!" yelped the lad, and tearing his jacket in his eagerness to escape, he scampered past Trim and out of the gate like a frightened hare.
Giles stopped for a moment to wipe his perspiring forehead and pass his tongue over his dry lips, then he made a sign to Trim to follow, and walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Kent's grave.
He dreaded what he should find there, and his heart beat like a sledge-hammer.
The grave was at the back of the church, and the choir boy had evidently passed it when trying to take a short cut to his mother's cottage over the hedge.
The snow was falling so thickly and the night was so dark that Giles wondered how the lad could have seen any one on the grave. Then he remembered that the lad had spoken of a lantern.
During a lull in the wind he lighted a match, and by the blue glare he saw the lantern almost at his feet, where the boy had dropped it in his precipitate flight.
Hastily picking this up, he lighted the candle with shaking fingers and closed the glass.
A moment later, and he was striding towards the grave with the lantern casting a large circle of light before him.
In the ring of that pale illumination he saw the tall tombstone, and beneath it the figure of a woman lying face downward on the snow.
Trim gave an exclamation of astonishment, but Giles set his mouth and suppressed all signs of emotion.
He wondered if the figure was that of Anne or of Daisy, and whether the woman, whomsoever she was, was dead or alive.
Suddenly he started back with horror.
From a wound under the left shoulder-blade a crimson stream had welled forth, and the snow was stained with a brilliant red.
The staring eyes of the groom looked over his shoulder as he turned the body face upwards.
Then Giles uttered a cry.
Here was Daisy Kent lying dead—murdered—on her father's grave! _____
CHAPTER V
AFTERWARDS
Never before had any event created such a sensation in the village of Rickwell.
From the choir boy and his mother the news quickly spread.
Also Giles had to call in the aid of the rector to have the body of the unfortunate girl carried to The Elms.
In a short time the churchyard was filled with wondering people, and quite a cortege escorted the corpse.
It was like the rehearsal of a funeral procession.
Mrs. Morley had gone to bed, thinking the two girls might be reconciled in church and come home together.
Her husband, not so sanguine, had remained in the library till after midnight, ready to play the part of peace-maker should any fracas occur.
He appeared in the hall when poor dead Daisy was carried through the door, and stared in surprise at the spectacle.
"Great heavens!" he cried, coming forward, his ruddy face pale with sudden emotion. "What is all this?"
Giles took upon himself the office of spokesman, which the rector, remembering that he had been engaged to the deceased, tacitly delegated to him.
"It's poor Daisy," he said hoarsely. "She has been—"
"Murdered!
No.
Don't say murdered!"
"Yes, we found her lying on her father's grave, dead; a knife-thrust under the left shoulder-blade.
She must have died almost instantaneously."
"Dead!" muttered Morley, ghastly white. And he approached to take the handkerchief from the dead face. "Dead!" he repeated, replacing it. Then he looked at the haggard face of Ware, at the silent group of men and the startled women standing in the doorway, where the rector was keeping them back. "Where is her murderess?" he asked sharply.
"Murderess!" repeated Giles angrily. "What do you mean?"
"Mean?
Why, that Miss Denham has done this, and——"
"You are mad to say such a thing."
"I'll tax her with it to her face.
Where is she?
Not at home, for I have been waiting to see her."
"She's run way on Mr. Ware's motor-car," volunteered Trim, only to be clutched violently by his master.
"Don't say that, you fool.
You can't be sure of that, Mr. Morley," he added, turning to the scared man. "Make no remark about this until we can have a quiet talk about it."
"But I say——"