The horn still swung from his baldrick, but the sword was
gone.
Rather to the surprise of the company, Brain did not follow up the
question thus suggested; but, while retaining an air of leading the
inquiry, had also an appearance of changing the subject.
"Now we're all assembled," he observed, quietly, "there is a
question I want to ask to begin with. Did anybody here actually see
Lord Bulmer this morning?"
Leonard Crane turned his pale face round the circle of faces till he
came to Juliet's; then he compressed his lips a little and said:
"Yes, I saw him."
"Was he alive and well?" asked Brain, quickly. "How was he
dressed?"
"He appeared exceedingly well," replied Crane, with a curious
intonation. "He was dressed as he was yesterday, in that purple
costume copied from the portrait of his ancestor in the sixteenth
century. He had his skates in his hand."
"And his sword at his side, I suppose," added the questioner. "Where
is your own sword, Mr. Crane?"
"I threw it away."
In the singular silence that ensued, the train of thought in many
minds became involuntarily a series of colored pictures.
They had grown used to their fanciful garments looking more gay and
gorgeous against the dark gray and streaky silver of the forest, so
that the moving figures glowed like stained-glass saints walking.
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