The voices alone would have guided her. Several were heard talking within the room: her husband's she distinguished plainly: and, she thought, madam certainly thought, he was sobbing. Madam went into a heat at the sound. What revelation had Mr. Adair been already making? He had lost no time apparently.
The door was not latched. Madam cautiously pushed it an inch or two open so as to enable her to see in. She looked very ugly just now, her lips drawn back from her teeth with emotion, something like a hyena's. Madam looked in: and saw, not Mr. Adair, but--Bessy Rane.
Bessy Rane. She was standing near the table, whilst Dr. Rane was talking. Standing quite still, with her placid face, her pretty curls falling, and wearing a violet-coloured merino gown, that madam had seen her in a dozen times. In short, it was just like Bessy Rane in life. On the table, near the one solitary candle, lay some white work, as if just put out of hand.
In all madam's life she had perhaps never been so frightened as now. The truth did not occur to her. She surely thought it an apparition, as Jelly had thought before; or that--or that Bessy had in some mysterious manner been conveyed hither from that disturbed grave. In these confused moments the mind is apt to run away with itself. Madam's was not strong enough to endure the shock, and be silent. With a piercing shriek, she turned to fly, and fell against the whitewashed chimney that the architect of the old-fashioned house had seen fit to carry up through the centre of it. The next moment she was in hysterics.
Bessy was the first to run to attend her. Bessy herself, you understand, not her ghost. In a corner of the capacious old room, built when ground was to be had for an old song, was Bessy's bed; and on this they placed Mrs. North. Madam was not long in recovering her equanimity: but she continued where she was, making believe to be exhausted, and put a corner of her shawl up to her face. For once in her life that face had a spark of shame in it.
Yes: Bessy was not dead. Humanly speaking, there had never been any more probability of Bessy's demise than there was of madam's at this moment. Dr. Rane is giving the explanation, and the others are standing to listen; excepting Mr. North, who has sat down in an old-fashioned elbow-chair, whilst Richard leans the weight of his undamaged arm behind it. Mrs. Gass has pushed back her bonnet from her beaming face; the inspector looks impassive as befits his calling, but on the whole pleased.
"I am not ashamed of what I have done," said Dr. Rane, standing by Bessy's side; "and I only regret it for the pain my wife's supposed death caused her best friends, Mr. North and Richard. I would have given much to tell the truth to Mr. North, but I knew it would not be safe to trust him, and so I wished it to wait until we should have left the country. For all that has occurred you must blame the tontine. That is, blame the Ticknells, who obstinately, wrongfully, cruelly kept the money from us. There were reasons--my want of professional success one of them--why I wished to quit Dallory, and start afresh in another place; I and my wife talked of it until it grew, with me, into a disease; and I believe Bessy grew to wish for it at last almost as I did."
"Yes, I did, Oliver," she put in.
"Look at the circumstances," resumed Dr. Rane, in his sternest tones, and not at all as though he were on his defence. "There was the sum of two thousand pounds belonging to me and my wife conjointly, and they denied our right to touch it until one of us should be dead and gone! It was monstrously unjust. You must acknowledge that much, Mr. Inspector."
"Well--it did seem hard," acknowledged that functionary.