He shook his head impatiently. “Let me be. I’m no’ hungry.”
With her eyes on the cloth she said in a strange gentleness of tone: “John, dinna trouble over much. Maybe everything ’ll come right yet. Dinna be vexed wi’ me, but I believe—John, I believe that if ye took pen now and wrote to Kitty, telling her the truth—” She stopped short, so dreadful was his expression.
“Let that be,” he growled, “or ye’ll drive me stark mad. Peace!—no’ another word!” He got up and strode from the room.
In his pocket was a letter, the postmark on which would have told that it had been posted in London about midnight; a letter which he had been expecting for days, consisting of one pencilled word—“Arrested”—with neither address nor signature. And by that solitary word Corrie’s soul was racked, as between a man’s last hope and his final terror.
Alone, Rachel put her hand to her face.
“Oh God,” she murmured, “if only it had been possible. . . . But now the candle mun be left to burn—burn to the end. . . . Maybe—oh, surely—I’ll save him yet.”
In her methodical way she cleared the table, washed the dishes, and set the kitchen in order. Afterwards she sat by the fire and tried to read the morning’s paper. She noticed that on the previous day Zeniths had risen to £6, but the sensational advance moved her not at all. Long after she had ceased to read she kept staring at the printed page. At seven o’clock, feeling her strength ebbing, and knowing how vital it was that she should conserve every spark of energy in her, she went up to her room and lay down. There was still another hour, possibly more, to wait and endure. . . .
At last—at last the sound of running and excited shouts . . . a thundering on the door below . . . the opening of the door—
“Mr. Corrie, the mill’s on fire!”
A pause that seemed an age, then her brother’s voice, harsh, yet almost calm—