“Arrest him! Arrest that fiend, for he has killed my mother!”
There was a wild hubbub of cries in the room, and George Lorraine saw lying on the pillow, in all the awful majesty of death, the face that only yesterday had smiled upon him with a mother’s pride. The change was so swift and sudden that his limbs shook beneath him, and a cold sweat started out upon his forehead. Like one dazed, he heard Fair going on wildly:
“He came to the door and ordered me to open it, and I begged him to go away, because mamma was sick with her heart, and I feared the excitement would kill her. But he only cursed me, and when I ran to look at her she was dead.”
George Lorraine, recovering somewhat from the first shock of his surprise, answered sullenly:
“Why didn’t you open the door, then, without making such a fuss? You are my wife, and I had a right to come in,” and, turning to the gaping group in the room, he added: “We were married last night, and she ran away from me because she found out I wasn’t as rich as she expected, and I came this morning to take her home with me—and, by Heaven, I will, for I mean to tame the little shrew.”
It had suddenly occurred to him that it was a good thing for him that Mrs. Fielding was dead. It would be easier to cope with her daughter.
But the bereaved daughter was glaring at him with the rage of a tigress bereaved of her young, and still crying madly:
“Won’t some one bring a policeman and take him to prison? He has killed my mother.”
A big, stout Irishwoman, who was looking in at the door called out lustily:
“Arrah, my poor lamb, that will I bring a policeman this minute if sumbuddy will howld the spalpeen till I gits back,” and she stumped out into the hall on her coarse brogans, while George Lorraine, with his senses half stupefied by drink, gave way to a maudlin terror, and, dashing by the astonished group, made good his escape.