"Ah, poor woman! This is a sad judgment—a heavy blow to her. She must feel this bad enough," said one of the old servants. "Yes, yes, Noah, lose no time in going home to comfort your mother."
I gazed from one to the other in blank astonishment. They shook their heads significantly. I hurried away without asking or comprehending what they meant.
As I walked rapidly home, I pondered over their strange conduct. Beyond my losing my situation of gamekeeper and porter to the lodge, I could not see in what way the death of Mr. Carlos should so terribly affect my mother, without she suspected that I was his murderer. Guilt is naturally timid; but my plans had been laid with such caution and secrecy, and carried out so well, that it was almost next to an impossibility for her to suspect a thing in itself so monstrously improbable.
The murder had been an impulsive, not a premeditated act. Four-and-twenty hours ago I would have shot the man who could have thought me capable of perpetrating such a deed.
The clocks in the village were striking eight when I entered the lodge. My mother was sitting in her easy chair, supported by pillows. Her face was deathly pale, and she had been crying violently. Two women, our nearest neighbours, were standing by her side, bathing her wrists and temples with hartshorn.
"Oh, Noe," exclaimed Mrs. Jones, "I'm glad thee be come to thy mother. She hath been in fits ever since she heard the dreadful news."
"We could not persuade her that you were safe," said Mrs. Smith. "She will be content when she sees you herself."
"Mother,"—and I went up to her and kissed her rigid brow—"are you better now?"
She took my hand and clasped it tightly between her own, but made no reply. Her face became convulsed, the tears flowed over her cheeks like rain, and she fainted in my arms.
"She is dying!" screamed both women.