This was Mrs. Booth—Bertha Booth.
She was raging up and down the room, her eyes red with crying, and she moaned and sobbed as she walked—
“I wish I were dead! I do. Oh, Alec; poor, dear Alec. It is horrible! horrible! I know I shall go mad. If I sit still even for a minute, I can feel the cold thing touching me again. Oh, why did I get married? We were very happy before, Professor! Or why did I not marry you, as you wanted me to? I am sure no one would have wanted to kill you. And the way he looked! I’m sure I shall never forget the face—it haunts me. And we had a few words yesterday, and we never had time even to make it up. And who did it—and how was it done? Tell me, Professor. I’m sure you must know—you know so many things. Don’t shake your head. I am certain you are keeping something back. But I will know! I ought to know! I’m his wife! And why am I not killed too? I wish I had been; it would have saved me hours of misery, for I shall die of it. I know I shall die of it.”
“Try to be calm, Bertha; be a brave woman. Time will heal all, reveal all; and remember that to-morrow there will be the inquest, and you will have to attend.”
“I can’t go. I’m not fit to go. It is too much. How can they expect me, who am nearly out of my mind with this horror, to go to their dreadful inquest?”
“But try and bear up, my dear. I will be with you. You will not be alone.”
“And I have no dress to wear,” Bertha murmured.
“No dress! Why you have heaps of dresses.”
“No black dress. But there, you are a man, or you would know at once I cannot go out in public till I have my weeds.”
“If that is the trouble, you can easily order all you want from Sydney.”