"Donna Lianor, return to your father's house; I have something to tell
you which I dare not breathe here--it is too horrible! Prepare
yourself for a great shock, my poor child! I wish some one else had
brought the awful tidings," he cried hoarsely.
Lianor stood perfectly still, and her eyes grew wide and her face
blanched with awakened fear. Clasping her hands piteously together,
she said:
"Tell me now. I am brave--can bear anything! Is it Luiz? Is he ill--in
danger? Oh, Diniz, for pity's sake tell me!"
Diniz took the trembling hands in his, and quietly bidding the others
follow, led her silently through the town, until they arrived at the
house where Luiz had taken rooms with his friend.
"Perhaps it is best you should see him. Poor Luiz! How can I break the
awful truth to you? Your betrothed--the man you loved--is dead--
murdered by a cowardly hand on his way home from your father's
palace!"
Lianor grew deathly pale.
"Dead!" she repeated, clasping her hands despairingly to her throbbing
brow. "It cannot be true! My darling dead--murdered!"
"My poor child, it is only too true! This morning he was found, and
brought home, stabbed through the heart!"
"But who could have done it?" Savitre asked in a low, hushed whisper.
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