“Kiss me, Claire,” said he.
For a moment, to the surprise and indignation of Bram, she seemed to hesitate. Then she obeyed, putting her lips to Christian’s forehead, after a vain attempt to check her tears. Then there was a silence. They heard the voices of Mr. Cornthwaite and another man asking—“Where? Where is he?” And Christian opened his eyes.
“Bram,” said he, in a voice which betrayed agitation, “take her away. Don’t let my father see her. Take her away. Never mind leaving me. Quick.”
But there was no time. Mr. Cornthwaite was already close to the group. He touched Claire, and shrank back with an exclamation of horror and disgust. Bram seized her arm, and almost lifted her from the spot where she stood, dazed and incapable of movement. She, however, was evidently unconscious both of Mr. Cornthwaite’s touch and of his utterance. She was like a bewildered child in Bram’s hands, and she allowed him to lead her across the lines, obeying his smallest injunction with perfect, unresisting docility.
When he had brought her to a place of safety within the works, he turned to her.
“I want to go back to him,” he said. “It will only be for a moment, I’m afraid. Then I’ll come back and take you home. Will you wait for me?”
“Yes,” she answered in the same obedient manner, as if his wish were a command.
He looked searchingly into her face. In mercy, it seemed to Bram, a cloud had settled on her mind; the terrible events of the past half-hour had become a blank to her. The little creature, who had been a passionate fury such a short time ago, had changed into the most helpless, the most docile, of living things. Did she understand what it was that she had done? Did she realize that it was her own act which had killed her cousin? Bram could not believe it. He gave one more look into her white face, hardly daring to tell himself what the outcome of this terrible scene would be for her, and then he left her, and went back across the rails to the spot where he had quitted his friend.
They had raised him from the ground in spite of his protests, and were bearing him by his father’s orders into the shelter of the works. When they stopped, and laid him down on a couch which had been hastily made with coats and sacks, he was so much exhausted that it was not until they had forced a few drops of brandy down his throat that he was able to speak again. Then he only uttered one word—
“Bram!”