Mr. Cornthwaite freed himself with a jerk from Bram’s restraining hand. But Claire had disappeared.
“Well, she’s got away this time, but your interference won’t save her much longer. My son—to be killed—by a jade like that! My God! My God!”
He had broken down quite suddenly, overcome by an overwhelming sense of his loss. Although he had never been a very tender or a very indulgent father, he had loved his son more than he himself knew. He recognized, now that Christian lay dead, what hopes, what ambitions had been bound up in him. Even the works, the true darling of his heart, seemed suddenly to become a mere worthless toy when he realized that with himself would die the interest of his family in the enterprise he had founded. He had imagined that he should see his descendants sitting in his own place in the office, carrying on the work he had begun. Now, in one short hour, his hopes and dreams were demolished. Nothing was left to him but revenge upon the woman who had taken the color out of his life by killing his son.
Bram was awed by the depth of his so suddenly manifested despair. He felt with a most true instinct that there were no words in the human tongue which could do any good to the miserable man. He could only stand by, in solemn silence, while Mr. Cornthwaite put his head down between his hands, drawing long sobbing breaths of grief and despair.
But presently the doctor, who was an old friend of Mr. Cornthwaite’s, came in search of him, and put his hand through his arm. Then Bram stole quietly away, and went in search of poor Claire.
He had not to go far. He had not, indeed, walked twenty paces, when, turning a corner among the innumerable buildings which formed the great works, he came upon her, standing, like a lost child, with her arms down at her sides, and her head bent a little downwards. As soon as he appeared she turned to accompany him without a word, much as a dog does that has been waiting for its master.
This change in the spirited girl to such a helpless, docile creature, frightened Bram even more than it touched him. He felt that some great, some awful change, must have taken place in the girl who was too proud to allow him to enter her father’s house. Was it the feeling of the awful thing she had done, of the vengeance she had drawn down upon herself which had brought about the change?
He could not see her face. She walked beside him in silence till they came to the gate of the works, and there she stopped for a moment to look through the door by which Christian had come out with her an hour before. And then in the gaslight Bram saw her face at last, read the very thoughts which were passing in her mind—remembrance, remorse—the horror of it all. But she uttered no word, no cry. With a shudder she passed out, putting her hands up to her eyes as if to shut out the terrible pictures her brain conjured up.
Bram followed her, at first without speaking. She did not seem to know that he was beside her; at least she never looked at him, never spoke to him. He, on his side, while longing to say some kindly word, was afraid of waking her old pride, of being told to go about his business, if he broke the spell of silence which hung over them both.