Mr. Richard could not be found; this was the burden of the cry. Chris stopped short.
“No,” she said, in a low voice, staring in front of her. “He was murdered first, and the place was set on fire as a blind.”
And then she laughed hysterically, so that her mother began to tremble for her sanity.
When the morning came, Chris was too ill to get up, and a doctor was sent for, who ordered her to remain in bed, and keep very quiet. Before night she had become worse, and on hearing that she had been suffering from worry and shock, the doctor gave it as his opinion that she was suffering from brain fever. It was either that or typhoid, although at the present stage he could not definitely pronounce which it was.
In the meantime rumour was busy, and it said, starting from the gossip among the servants of the household, that the fire had not been an accident. The place was not insured, so there was no official investigation into its origin. But gossip spoke of the smell of paraffin, and the story was soon current that Mr. Richard had conceived a hopeless passion for Miss Abercarne, that he had set fire to the place in order to effect his escape, and that he had then committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea.
Chris knew nothing of all this. She lay for many days unconscious, hanging at one time between life and death. Mr. Bradfield’s despair at any apparent change for the worse in her condition was quite as great as that of her own mother. His haggard face, his anxious eyes, the change from brusque abruptness to an almost timorous vacillation in his manner, excited the comment of the entire neighbourhood. Some put the change in him down to anxiety as to the fate of his ward, of whom no inquiries could find a trace; some to his despair on the young lady’s account. When Chris began to get better, her mother’s anxieties about the girl were as deep as ever. For the melancholy in the girl’s eyes was touching in the extreme; a shadow seemed to have been cast upon her whole nature. Her frivolity had gone, but it seemed to have taken the freshness of her youth with it. Mrs. Abercarne longed for, at the same time that she dreaded, an explanation.
It came one day when Chris had been carried, for the first time, into the Chinese-room, and laid upon the sofa. Mrs. Abercarne was watching her daughter anxiously, when Chris said:
“Mother, has anything been found out—about the fire?”
Mrs. Abercarne flushed slightly; she had heard a good many rumours, but had shut her ears as much as possible.
“Found out!” she echoed, as if surprised by the question. “Why, no, of course not.”