The Seven Secrets by William le Queux

At midnight I was seated in the drawing-room of the Manor. Before me, dressed in plain black which made her beautiful face look even paler than it was, sat my love, bowed, despondent, silent. The household, although still astir, was hushed by the presence of the dead; the long old room itself, usually so bright and pleasant, seemed full of dark shadows, for the lamp, beneath its yellow shade, burned but dimly, and everywhere there reigned an air of mourning.

Half-demented by grief, my love had arrived in hot haste about ten o'clock, and, rushing to poor Mary's room, had thrown herself upon her knees beside the poor inanimate clay; for, even though of late differences might have existed between them, the sisters were certainly devoted to each other. The scene in that room was an unhappy one, for although Ethelwynn betrayed nothing by her lips, I saw by her manner that she was full of remorse over the might-have-beens, and that she was bitterly reproaching herself for some fact of which I had no knowledge.