But Edmund Clarke's face wore the calmness of a terrible despair. He felt now that Liane had been foully murdered, and that nothing remained to him but to take the most complete vengeance on her murderers.
"Do not weep so bitterly, my good girl; tears will not bring back the dead. All that remains to us now is to take vengeance on her enemies. To do this we must find proofs of their crime. Come with me, and let us search Granny Jenks' room."
It was not hard to break open the locked door, and they went into the gloomy apartments, Sophie opening the window and letting in a flood of light.
Then she saw what had escaped their eyes last night--stains of blood on the bare, uncarpeted floor. In the bedroom, the pillow where Liane's head had rested last night was also marked by red stains that told in their own mute language the story of a terrible crime.
Their horrified eyes met, and he groaned:
"It is as I told you! She was murdered, sweet Liane! Oh, I will take a terrible vengeance for the crime!"
Sophie replied with heartbroken sobbing, and they remained thus several moments, shuddering with horror in the bare, fireless room.
But not a tear dimmed the man's eyes. He was stricken with despair that lay too deep for tears. His heavy eyes wandered about the room, lighting on a small black trunk in a corner.
"If I could only find the proofs!" he muttered, and unhesitatingly broke the lock, scattering the contents out upon the floor.
It was filled with yellowing relics of a bygone day, and he turned them over rapidly, saying to Sophie:
"I am searching for something to prove a suspicion of mine--a suspicion of a deadly wrong!"
She dried her eyes and looked on with womanly curiosity, while he picked up and shook a little red box in the bottom of the trunk.
A dozen or two trinkets and letters fell out on the floor, and he searched them eagerly over, lighting at last on a slender golden necklace belonging to an infant.
He held it with a shaking hand, saying to Sophie:
"See this little clasp forming in small diamonds the word 'Baby'? It belonged to my wife in infancy, and when our little Roma was born she clasped it on her neck."
"And Granny Jenks has stolen it!" she cried indignantly.
"Worse than that! She stole also the child that wore it!" he answered, with a burst of the bitterest despair.