It was on Herbert's lips to ask her the reason, when a commotion was seen to take place amongst the harvesters. Excited voices were raised; two or three men stepped into the standing corn, and all threw down their hooks.
"Hullo, hullo!" cried the farmer, striding towards them. "What's all this?"
The answer he received startled him. A woman shrieked, and then several of them came tearing past, wild-eyed and white-faced. Rachel looked at Mayne. "What--what is it?" she gasped. But without reply Herbert rushed on towards the disordered group.
"What is the matter?" roared Carwell, parting the crowd right and left. "What are ye----?"
Then his eye caught sight of a dark object lying in the middle of the corn, and he recoiled. "A body!" he exclaimed, in horrified tone. "God help us--the body of a lass!"
It was, indeed, the body of a woman. The harvesters examined it, but they could not recognize the face. It had evidently lain there several weeks among the standing corn. Recognition of its identity was impossible; indeed rain and sun and wind had combined to blot out well-nigh all semblance to humanity. But the dress showed these were the remains of a woman. There was something very pitiful in this poor clay lying there in the sunshine.
"Strangled!" muttered Carwell, bending over it; "there is a cord round the throat. Send the women away," he shouted; "this is no sight for them. Poor lass! Dead--and in my field. I wonder who she was. Keep back, Rachel," he added, as his daughter, attracted by the news, came swiftly up.
But Rachel did not pause. She had caught sight of the dead woman's dress, and brushed past her father.
"Bithiah!" she cried. "It is Bithiah--Tera--Mr. Johnson's ward!"