"Humph! You can not. The bridge is gone; and, besides it is utterly useless. I have seen death too many times, Beatrix Dane, to be mistaken. I tell you he is dead and has been for hours; he is quite cold. See!"
With a slow, reluctant movement Beatrix ventured to lay her trembling fingers upon the cold, rigid hand of the corpse. She drew back with a low cry of terror.
"Oh! how cold—how cold!" she moaned. "Oh, papa! papa! papa! cold and dead! It is true—it is indeed true. Oh, Mrs. Lynne! what shall we do without him?"
Mrs. Lynne's thin lip curled.
"What will I do, you mean?" she retorted. "It can have no effect upon you. See! that letter in his hand is a message for you. You are to go away at once to your own home, thank goodness!"
The great brown velvety eyes met the cold orbs before her with a stare of astonishment.
"Go home—to—my—own home, Mrs. Lynne?" she repeated, blankly. "Why, I have no home but this!"
"Indeed! And pray, who gave you a right to call this home? Such as it is, it is the only shelter that you have had for sixteen years. You ought to be ready to leave it now. You are nearly seventeen years old, and able to take care of yourself. Ah! there is Serena at last!" as a limp figure made its appearance in the open door—a tall, ungraceful figure in a calico wrapper, and muffled in a huge woolen shawl.
"Mamma"—in a tone of consternation—"what has happened? What is the matter with papa? Is he ill?"
Mrs. Lynne wound her arms around the angular form of her daughter, and burst into tears—the first real emotion which she had ever betrayed before Beatrix.