“He is dead.”
“He is dead, sir.”
“And his granddaughter?”
“She is in there with the body. Her grief is very poignant for the moment.”
“I must see her.”
“By your leave, sir—”
“I must see her, Dr. Harmsworth. You needn’t say me nay, sir. I know, and would act the part of friend by her.”
The doctor would have further protested, but Jim put him roughly to one side and made a way for his gentleman.
“In here, sir,” he said.
It was a little sombre, pathetic scene that Tuke faced as he entered. A flaring candle, stuck in a cleft-stick, split up the windy darkness of the interior into spokes of light and shadow. From the roof, great misty mats of cobwebs drooping, swayed in the draught like grotesque banners hung appropriately to the lying-in-state of the dusty thing on the floor. Thereover a hard-grained female was stooped, engaged in covering the dead face with a napkin; and leaned upright against a partition, her head dropped listlessly upon her arm, was the poor living victim of all this tragic gallimaufry.