"Ah, that is what we wish to find out," said the doctor, gravely. "But how do I know? Battersea may be the thief."
"The thief and the murderer!"
"Well, no, major. On second thought I do not think it is wise to couple those two words as yet. The thief may not be the murderer, and--but what can I say?" broke off Etwald, suddenly. "As yet we know nothing. It is late, now, major, and I must get back. Shall I give information to the police?"
"If you will be so kind," said the major, listlessly, and he let the doctor go away without another word.
All through that long night he knelt beside the bed upon which lay the corpse of the man whom he had loved as a son. The bedroom of Maurice was on the ground floor and the windows looked out onto a little lawn, which was girdled by thick trees in which the nightingales were singing. The sorrowful songs of the birds, flitting in the moonlight and amid the cloistral dusk of the trees, seemed to Jen like a requiem over the young life which had passed away. The major was broken-hearted by the sorrow which had come upon him, and when he issued from the chamber of death he looked years older than when he entered it. It seemed to his big loving heart as though the woman he loved had died anew in the person of her son.
Fortunately he was not forced to sorrow alone; toward midday David arrived from town, filled with grief and surprise at the untimely end of Maurice. He found the major in the library, and grasped him by the hand with genuine sorrow.
"My poor uncle," he said in a low voice. "I cannot tell you what I feel. Etwald telegraphed to me the first thing in the morning, and I came down by the earliest train there was. Poor Maurice!--and we parted in anger."
"More's the pity," sighed Jen, leaning upon the shoulder of Sarby; "but you cherish no anger in your heart now?"
"God forbid, sir!"
David spoke so fervidly that Jen saw plainly he meant what he said. The massive face of the young man looked worn and haggard in the searching light of the morning, and whatever enmity the love of the same woman had sown between him and the dead, it was not to be denied that he was suffering cruelly from remorse at their unhappy difference. Jen was sorry, but even in his own grief he could not forbear a stab.