'What has gone wrong, Frederick?' Helena asked eagerly.
'Oh please, Miss, Mr. Rivers—Miss——'
'Yes, Frederick, Mr. Rivers——'
'Please, Miss, poor Mr. Rivers—he is killed!'
Then for the first time the terrible reality of the situation was brought straight home to Helena—to her mind and to her heart. Up to this moment it was melodramatic, startling, shocking, bewildering; but there was no cold, grim, cruel, practical detail about it. It was like the fierce blinding flash of the lightning and the crash of the thunder, followed, when senses coldly recover, by the knowledge of the abiding blindness. It was like the raw conscript's first sight of the comrade shot down by his side. Helena was a brave girl, but she would have fallen in a faint were it not that a burst of stormy tears came to her relief.
'Poor Soame Rivers!' she sobbed. 'I wish I could have liked him more than I did.' And she sobbed again, and Ericson understood her and sympathised with her.
'Poor Soame Rivers!' he said after her. 'I wish I too had liked him, and known him better!'
'What was he killed for?' Helena passionately asked.
'He was killed for me!' the Dictator answered calmly. 'All this trouble and tragedy have been brought on your house by me.'
'Let it come!' the girl sobbed, in a wild fresh outburst of new emotion.