"Don't be too frightened," he whispered, "it will all be over very, very soon, Mrs. Dampier. Somehow I don't think you have anything to fear."
"Please stand over in that corner," said the janitor, pointing towards the black box Gerald Burton had noticed when they had first come into the yard. "We have a poor lady in that box who was only brought in an hour ago! She was run over, killed by an omnibus—such a pity, for she is such a nice fresh-looking lady: not more than about thirty years of age. We expect her family any moment; they will know her by her wedding ring, and by a little locket with a child's hair in it."
Even as he was speaking the man was opening a small, inconspicuous door, situated close to that which gave into the refrigerating-engine room.
Gerald's arm slipped down from Nancy's shoulder. She had put out her hand gropingly, as a blind child might have done, and he was now holding the poor little hand tightly clasped in his firm grasp.
There came a harsh rumbling sound, and then there was wheeled out into the open yard an inclined plane hitched up on huge iron wheels. To the inclined plane was bound a swathed, rigid figure.
"Here is Number 4," said the man in a subdued tone. "I will uncover his face so that madame and monsieur may see if it is the gentleman for whom they are seeking."
A strange tremor shot through Gerald Burton. He was shaken with a variety of sensations of which the predominant feeling was that of repulsion. Was he at last about to gaze at the dead face of the man who, with the one paramount exception of that same man's wife, had filled his mind and thoughts to the exclusion of all else since he had first heard the name of John Dampier? Was he now to make acquaintance with the stranger who had yet in so curious and sinister a way become his familiar?
Nancy gently withdrew her hand from his: leaning slightly forward, she gazed at the swathed stark form which might possibly—so much she had told herself at once—be that of John Dampier.
Very slowly the man drew off that portion of the sheet which covered the upper part of the body, and, as he did so, Gerald Burton heard the woman standing by his side utter a long, fluttering sigh of relief.
Thank God it was not Jack—not her Jack!