Explore "The Sealed Message" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It would be hard to say who was the palest and most terror-stricken of the trio who stood on the terrace. Mrs. Crosbie clung to her stern mother with dilated eyes, shaking like a reed: but Mrs. Berch, although stern and unmoved -- outwardly at least -- was also pallid. As for Rebb, he leaned against the balustrade of the terrace scarcely able to speak. Before him stood Tod and Arnold, Gerald Haskins and the girl whom he had treated so cruelly -- the girl whom he had believed until now was at the bottom of some rural stream. The hour of retribution had come, and in a flash the guilty man saw everything he possessed reft from him -- saw also the structure of crime and falsehood he had reared crumble into dust. His worst enemy would have pitied the Major in that hour of agony.
"You! " he faltered, staring at Mavis, as though she were indeed the ghost he almost believed her to be. "You!"