"Killed! Master Benja!" she gasped.
"He was burnt to death," cried the woman, with sobs of emotion. "I don't know the rights of it, though the place is full of nothing else; some said one thing and some another. Any way, the fault was Honour's. She left him alone with a lighted candle, and he set himself on fire. There is a tale that somebody fastened the doors upon him to let him burn; but you know, ma'am, it can't be true. Not a bit of business is doing at Alnwick, and most of the shops have a shutter or two up. The inquest is on now, at the Carleton Arms."
With a prolonged shudder, Mrs. Darling seemed to come to herself. "How is it that I was not sent for?" she asked: and though the servant took the question to herself, and answered that she did not know, it was evident that it was not put to her.
All her indisposition forgotten, her bodily pain no longer felt in the greater mental pain, Mrs. Darling put on her cloak and bonnet and went out. The maid remonstrated that she was not fit to walk; wished her to at least wait until a fly could be sent for: she was as one who heard not. Striking into the field-path, by which means she avoided the gossiping village--and she was in no mood for it then, Mrs. Darling emerged from the fields almost close to Alnwick Hall, just below the Carleton Arms. Had there been any way to avoid passing the inn, Mrs. Darling had surely chosen it: but there was none. As she came within view of it, and saw the idlers congregated around it in small groups, a sick feeling of dread took possession of her, and she shuddered as she had done in her own drawing-room. Dread of what? Perhaps Mrs. Darling could not precisely have defined what: but she did think it would be a mercy had the earth opened and let her through to the opposite side of the globe, away from all trouble and care.
Not a word did she speak to any one, not a question ask. She drew her veil over her face, pulled her cloak more closely around her, and was hastening on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, when she nearly ran against Mr. Pym the surgeon, who had just strolled outside from the heat and bustle of the crowded inquest-room.
"Is it you, Mrs. Darling?"
"What is all this?" was the rejoinder of Mrs. Darling, throwing back her veil for a moment, and then seeming to recollect herself, and putting it down again. "Is Benja really dead?"
"Really dead!" echoed Mr. Pym. "He has been dead since yesterday evening. Had you not heard of it?"
"I never heard a word until half-an-hour ago. What was it? How was it done?"
"Honour left him alone in the nursery with some paper toy that had a candle in it. When she got back he was burnt to death."