‘Could you identify the individual?’ inquired the magistrate’s clerk.
‘Should you know the man again?’ asked Dr. Carey, who was standing close to Kate, and near old Mrs. Duffy.
‘Ay, to be sure,’ she answered, with more energy than she had displayed before.
‘He has been taken;’ said Dr. Layard; ‘that is, a man has been taken up, and we think he is the man. You must see him yourself.’
The old woman shuddered, and grasped Kate’s hand tightly. It might have been Dr. Carey’s hand, for he seemed conscious of the close grasp, and answered to it.
‘Come, come,’ he said, encouragingly, ‘you never used to be a coward; and you have only to open your eyes, and look at him. You have plenty of friends about you, you know.’
‘He’s a dreadful man,’ she said, in a whisper, ‘but let him come.’
Kate herself felt a strong thrill of excitement, as she listened to the regular tramp of the policeman, and the shambling tread of the murderer, coming down the bare boards of the ward. The old woman had closed her eyes, as if to gather strength for the dreadful detective gaze. Dr. Carey laid his hand on the back of Kate’s chair, so close to her it almost touched her shoulder, and one of her brown curls fell upon it. The footsteps came on to the side of the bed, and stopped there. Kate turned her head and took one frightened glance. The murderer was a middle-aged man, with a full, heavy, red face, and light hair just turning grey, not a vicious-looking man on the whole; he might have been a decent, honest, creditable fellow, but for the drinking habits which had brutalised him. He was looking down at the wounded old woman with an air half sorrowful and half ashamed; but a little sullen also, as a boy looks when caught in some fault. The policeman at his right hand was the only sign to mark him out as a criminal; and he seemed as much on the alert as if he expected him to make a second murderous attack on the old woman in her bed. For a minute or two all were silent in the room. Mrs. Duffy’s eyelids were closed, and her lips moved as if in prayer. She looked up at last; and her dim blue eyes, which were full of terror, like those of a child who wakes frightened, changed like those of a child, when it sees that the face bending over it is a familiar face.
‘Why,’ she cried, in a voice at once firm and glad, ‘it’s my boy! It’s my Johnny!’
Her wrinkled features began to work with emotion, and she was about to raise herself up to stretch out her arms to him, but Dr. Carey was quick enough to prevent her. He threw himself on his knees at Kate’s feet, and laid his strong arm gently across the old woman. Every one else stood motionless and thunderstruck. The man himself did not stir hand or foot.