ked on the waxen flesh were the five fingers
of a man's _open hand_.

"Do you think that was a brigand's work?" he went on, his gripe
tightening till I could scarcely bear the pain. "They always strike with
a weapon or with the clenched fist. Shall I tell you whose mark that is?
Bruce's. If he did not murder him himself, he struck him after he was
dead."

"Impossible," I said; "how could he? He has never--"

Livingstone cast my arm loose somewhat impatiently. "We shall know all
some day," he growled, his whole face black with passion. "I am
convinced of it. If he's on earth I'll find him; and when I do, if I
show him mercy or let him go--" The imprecation that followed was not
less solemn and terrible because it was muttered to his own heart.

"We must never let Isabel guess the truth," he said, when he became
calmer. "It would be worse than all. She would always think she had
caused this, and she has enough to bear up against already. God help
her!"

Soon Aglaee came to tell us that her mistress was asleep. The
Frenchwoman's first impulse had been to be hysterical and helpless; it
was only her terror of Guy prevailing over all others that made her, as
she was, very useful.

He went to the door for an instant, and looked at Isabel. Dreamland was
kinder and pleasanter to her than real life, poor child, for there was a
smile on her lips that, when she was waking, would be long in visiting
them. How would ships or men ever last out if there were not some
harbors of refuge to rest in before going out into the wild weather
again? Truly she had won hers for the moment; it looked as if an angel
had come down to smooth, this time, instead of troubling the waters.

The pursuers came back empty-handed; they had not come upon the faintest
trace, nor could they hear of any suspicious character having been seen
in the neighborhood.

Guy betrayed no impatience when he heard this; but he went out himself
with some of the best men, and spent the rest of the night and all the
following morning on the quest. All to no purpose. He returned about
noon, with his companions quite fagged out; but fatigue and
sleeplessness seemed to have no grasp upon his frame.

Isabel was up, and had been asking for him several times. When he saw
her, she offered no opposition to his wish to go on straight to Rome the
next day. Neither then nor at any future time did she ever ask for any
particulars of her husband's death.

Her old child-like de