“I came back because I supposed there would be things to attend to,” said Hugh, in an odd unnatural voice.
“Yes, of course. We must try to get poor Arthur through it.”
“Don’t let him see me.”
“Hugh, I can’t understand this. He must see you—he doesn’t take it so,” said James, much frightened at his brother’s wild, haggard look.
Hugh stood looking down at the gravel. Presently he said: “I’ll go and change my things. Let me have some breakfast. Where is it, and when?”
“At the Red Lion, at eleven.”
“I will attend to it.”
They were such commonplace words, and in one way Hugh seemed so entirely himself, that James was all the more confused and puzzled. Hugh went upstairs, made his toilet, and, after eating a few mouthfuls, went off to the village, without asking for his mother, who—fortunately, had not been aware of his absence—and, indeed, without speaking to anyone. Arthur came out at James’s summons. The dreamy look was gone, and he was evidently concentrating all his strength on the effort to bear up through the coming trial. He did not try to speak till they reached the inn, where, as they sat down in the quietest corner, he whispered: “Don’t be afraid. I shall manage.”
Hugh was being talked to, before the proceedings began, by the coroner and one or two others; but made, it seemed to James, hardly any answer to them.
The scene was first described by Mr Dickenson and by Wood, who could only take up the story after Mysie’s fall, of which Alice had been the only witness on the spot.