He was interrupted by a terrible scream from the balcony.
Mrs. Dodd was leaning wildly over it, with dilating eyes and quivering hand, that pointed down to the other side of the trestle: “Julia!! Julia!!”
Julia ran round, and stood petrified, her pale lips apart, and all her innocent joy frozen in a moment.
The tarpauling was scanty there, and a man's hand and part of his arm dangled helpless out.
The hand was blanched, and wore a well-known ring.
CHAPTER XXI
IN the terror and confusion no questions were then asked: Alfred got to David's head, and told Skinner to take his feet; Mrs. Dodd helped, and they carried him up and laid him on her bed. The servant girls cried and wailed, and were of little use: Mrs. Dodd hurried them off for medical aid, and she and Julia, though pale as ghosts, and trembling in every limb, were tearless and almost silent, and did all for the best. They undid a shirt button that confined his throat: they set his head high, and tried their poor little eau-de-Cologne and feminine remedies; and each of them held an insensible hand in both hers, clasping it piteously and trying to hold him tight, so that Death should not take him away from them.
“My son, where is my son?” sighed Mrs. Dodd.
Alfred threw his arm round her neck: “You have one son here: what shall I do?”