It is useless to write of the painful details that followed. The police arrived and Elsie Wray’s body was carried away, followed by her heart-broken father; May Churchill also walked close to the bearers of the dead, as they bore her down the Dene. But before this was done, with gentle, womanly hands May had again covered the face, and rolled up the long hair, and arranged the dress in seemly fashion. And John Temple stood by and watched her do this, with strange emotion.
“She is not a mere pretty girl, then,” he was thinking, and he turned away with a restless sigh.
Then, when the sad procession had crossed the little bridge at the commencement of the Dene, May and her father returned to Woodside, and Elsie’s body was carried on to the Wayside Inn, for the inquest which was necessary to be held on it. May was very much overcome as she stood and watched them bear away the poor girl whose tragic end she had been the first to discover. She wished even to follow the dead the whole way, but Mr. Churchill would not hear of this, and John Temple also advised her not to do so.
“Let your father drive you home,” he whispered; “you look quite done up as it is.”
So May was handed into her father’s dog-cart, but just as they were starting Mr. Churchill asked John Temple to go with them.
“Can’t I give you a lift, Mr. Temple?” he said.
“Thanks, very much,” answered John, with alacrity, stepping up into the back seat of the dog-cart, and when they reached the nearest road to Woodlea Hall, he made no offer to descend, but accompanied Mr. Churchill and May the whole way to Woodside Farm.
When they arrived there Mr. Churchill insisted that he should remain to lunch.