“Arthur!” she cried; but there came no answer. “Arthur!” she only heard him walking across the floor.
“Arthur!” she shook the handle, and put her knee against the panel.
“Arthur! for God’s sake open the door, and let me speak to you!” still no reply.
Would he drop out by the window, and so escape and finish the work he had begun? She ran downstairs and out of the house; but the sash was not lifted. Would he try to fire the place from within? She returned to the door, and beat against it, crying, “only a word, dear; only one word.”
And in reply there came something which sounded like a gurgle and a sob, followed by a heavy fall, which seemed to shake the house to its very foundation.
“Arthur!”—there was dead silence. “Arthur!” there was not even a breath in answer; nothing but silence—a silence which might be felt.
She knelt down and tried to look through the keyhole, but could distinguish nothing. As she rose, she chanced to look down at her light muslin dress, and saw that there was blood upon it—blood oozing under the door, trickling in a narrow stream out upon the landing.
She ran back the whole width of the lobby, and flung herself against the door; but of what avail was her poor strength? Then she rushed out upon the roof of the house, with a vague intention of pulling up the ladder after her, and fleeing over other roofs for help and succour; but the inexorable walls rose high above;—there were no means of escape, no chance of assistance.
Then she sped down the stairs once more—down the stairs and past the landing where there was already a dark pool of blood forming outside the door. She crossed the yard to the carpenter’s shop, and, seizing a hammer, ran to the outer gates, and struck blow after blow, striving to break the lock; she called and cried, but the people sweeping by never heard her, for the noise of passing conveyances deadened a voice already hoarse with excitement, exhausted with fear. She beat against the solid wood, and her blows were but woman’s blows, faint, and feeble, and weak; she screamed for help, but there was no one to hear.
In her anguish, in that awful extremity of her life, she looked once again round the yard; and, as she did so, her eye fell on the factory bell, which hung suspended on the highest point of the building.