Pinckney quailed, and gave way.
The next moment, Miles was rushing headlong up the hill.
On the crest of the second hill, above the beck and the bridge, he stopped to look round. The people on the steps were moving. Their number had increased. He could distinguish a servant-maid holding her apron to her eyes. They were moving slowly; they were carrying something into the house—something in a white covering that hung heavily as a cerement in the heavy air.
XXVII
THE FATAL TRESS
Was she dead?
The question was thundered out in the sound of the runner's own steps on the flinty places, and echoed by the stones that rolled away from under his feet. The thought throbbed in his brain, the unspoken words sang in his ears: Was she dead?
The face of Alice was before Ryan as he ran: the pale, delicate face of this last week, not the face of old days. The early days of summer were old days, though it was summer still. June by the Thames was buried deeper in the past than last year in Australia, though it was but August now. What had come over the girl in these few weeks? What had changed and saddened her? What made her droop like a trampled flower? What was the matter—was it the heart?
The heart! Suppose it was the heart. Suppose the worst. Suppose this shock had killed her. Suppose he—the criminal, the outlaw, the wretch unfit to look upon good women—had murdered this sweet, cruel, wayward, winsome girl! Even so, he must still push on and bring her aid. If that aid came too late, then let his own black life come to a swift and miserable end. His life for hers; the scales of justice demanded it.