“Can I send a message to the young lady?”
“Is it important?”
“Very.”
“Then I will take it myself.”
I scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper and handed it to the sister, who immediately left the room. I had not long to wait before she returned, saying that the lady would see me up-stairs.
I was shown up to the sick-room, where Lena was sitting by the bedside. She greeted me with a regard chastened by the gravity of the occasion. After a moment’s delay, I stepped up to the bed and looked at the patient. She had been unconscious, so they told me, for some time, and was now dying rapidly. A few hurried whispered words told the story. Mrs. Hartmann had gone to Westminster with Lena on the fatal morning of the previous day, to witness the great labour demonstration, and the old lady had been brutally trampled in Parliament Street by the mob. Indeed, but for a company of volunteers who succeeded in momentarily beating back the rush, both ladies would have perished, said the sister. Mrs. Hartmann, thus barely snatched from death, had felt well enough to struggle back to Islington with Lena, having, after an hour of weary waiting, and at great expense, procured a cart and driver. Everything seemed on the high-road to chaos, and the return was only accomplished after great risks had been run from the mob. Things looked better, however, when they managed to get out of the more central districts, and ultimately they reached the villa in safety, considerably surprised at the relatively quiet state of the neighbourhood. Soon after entering the house, however, Mrs. Hartmann was attacked by violent pains and nausea, and on the advent of a friendly doctor it was found that she had sustained the most grave internal injuries. Hæmorrhage set in later, and she rapidly became worse. Before becoming unconscious she had dictated a letter for her son (nobody knew that he was alive, added my informant), and had desired Lena to hand it to me for transmission. Very pathetic in character, it narrated the facts here recorded, and ended with “a last appeal” to him from a “dying mother” to better his dark and misguided life.
Poor lady, she little knew who her son really was, and how he had himself unwittingly hurried her to the grave.
Mrs. Hartmann passed away about an hour later. Lena and I reverently kissed the aged and venerable forehead, and paid the last tributes to our friend. Then leaving the death-chamber, I took Lena into a morning room and acquainted her with my extraordinary experiences since we had parted. She listened with the keenest interest, and was appalled to think that Hartmann—the anarchist assailant of London—could be the son of the poor harmless lady whose body lay so still in the adjoining chamber. Sometimes indeed she seemed quite unable to follow me, and bent searching glances on me as if to make sure that I was not after all romancing. No doubt my tale sounded fantastic; but conceive the man who could “romance” on so peculiarly solemn an occasion!
“But did you not see the aëronef yourself?” I asked.
“No, we were hopelessly jammed up in the crowd near Whitehall. The wildest rumours were afloat, fires were breaking out everywhere, cannon booming, and the mob breaking into shops and stores. It was impossible to see far owing to the smoke.”