In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one of the victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mother could be heard through the thin flooring.
"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too much for you."
She looked at him gently.
"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please let me."
He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say to
Mary:
"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a notice when I come down."
He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds of wailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heard between.
Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gathered up the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit she was in the room overhead. The thought of those two—her mother and Meynell—beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart.
After what seemed to her an age, she heard her mother's step, and the Rector following. Catharine stood again beside her daughter, brushing away at last a few quiet tears.
"You oughtn't to face this any more, indeed you oughtn't," said Meynell, with urgency, as he joined them. "Tell her so, Miss Mary. But she has been doing wonders. My people bless her!"