“Yes, yes? Oh, please go on!”
“But then—then”—will she ever be able to get through it? and this is only the first time out of hundreds that she will have to repeat it—“he seemed to lose his head; he stood for half a second right in front of the engine, and one of the buffers knocked him down, and the whole train went over him!” It is done! She has got it over; but of course there will follow a flood of questions and comments.
Mrs. Darcy has not long to wait. After the strong shudder that the dreadful narrative provokes comes a train of horrified curiosities as to detail.
“Was he—they told me not, but yet I can’t understand how it could be otherwise—was he terribly mutilated?”
Mrs. Darcy puts a thin hand up to her mouth to oblige it to cease twitching.
“Not in the least; beyond the injury to his head, from which he has been unconscious ever since, and a slight wound in the right leg, there was not a scratch upon him.”
“How miraculous!”
“The train was going quite slowly.”
“Then his life might have been saved—he might have got off scot-free, if he had not lost his head?”
“Yes; if he had not lost his head.” Oh, is not it nearly ended? how much longer will it continue?