She knew where there were matches, and she soon found a candle; and when she had lighted it, she returned, and, bravely enough, looked on the face of the only man she ever loved.
“I don’t think he’s dead, ma’am,” said the policeman, with a rough sympathy. “I have been trying to stop the bleeding; and, if you will give me some more handkerchiefs, I’ll see what we can do till the doctor comes.”
Mechanically, almost, Heather gave him what he asked for. Even in the midst of this tremendous sorrow, she could not shut out the memory of all those upheaped shavings, soaked in oil—of all, perhaps, those terrible men, now they were free of the premises, might discover.
If he were dead, he had left it all—the shame, the discovery, the punishment behind; but if he were not dead, and that detection then took place?
Had it not been for the fact of the door being secured inside, the man would have begun to suspect strange things of Heather; her manner was so singular, so wandering, so incomprehensible.
“Do you know how this happened?” he asked.
“He went mad, I think,” she answered. “I am sure he was mad; he has been odd, and unlike himself for some time;” and then she began to sob convulsively.
“Come, come, ma’am, you must not give way like this, you know,” said the doctor, who just then entered the apartment. “Take charge of her, will you?” he added, to a person who followed him in, “and don’t allow her to come back here at present. There, ma’am, pray go with this gentleman; we’ll see to whatever is necessary; you will only be in our way.”
“That is quite true, Mrs. Dudley,” said a familiar voice, tenderly and pityingly, and, at the sound of it, Heather looked up.
“Oh! Mr. Croft,” she cried, at sight of his dark face, bent down towards her with an ineffable compassion; “thank God—thank God for this!” and, clinging to his arm, she rather took him, than he her; out of the apartment, and into one of the lower rooms, where her first prayer was that “he would keep the people out—keep them away—till she had told him everything—ev-e-ry thing!”