“But, Jack, there—there isn’t any grave,” he said at last.
Jack lifted another vacant look to the young man’s face.
“No grave! no coroner! a doctor!” he muttered, then suddenly he seemed to comprehend, and was galvanized into life.
He sprang up; he seized Geoffrey by the shoulder.
“Boy! boy!” he cried, in a strained, unnatural voice, “ye can’t mean it! ye can’t mean that she didn’t die! that—that I didn’t kill her after all! Tell me—tell me quick! if ye’ve brought me such blessed truth as that, I’m yer slave as long as I live.”
He was terribly agitated. He shook as if he had suddenly been attacked with violent ague, and Geoffrey could see his broad chest rise and fall with the heavy throbbing of his startled heart.
“Sit down, Jack,” he commanded, rising and putting him back into his chair; “you must be more calm, or I cannot tell you anything. Margery was not dead, but she was dreadfully hurt, and was ill for a long time, so ill that for more than a month they thought every day that she must die.”
“And—she—didn’t——”
The words were almost inarticulate, but Geoffrey understood him by the motion of his lips.
“Don’t tell me,” he continued, catching his breath in a spasmodic way, a look of horror in his eyes, “don’t tell me that she lived to be—like as you was.”