‘I am going back to London again to-morrow,’ said Springrove, ‘and I called to say a word before going. Where is... ?’
‘She has just run upstairs. Come in—never mind scraping your shoes—we are regular cottagers now; stone floor, yawning chimney-corner, and all, you see.’
‘Mrs. Manston came,’ said Edward awkwardly, when he had sat down in the chimney-corner by preference.
‘Yes.’ At mention of one of his skeletons Owen lost his blitheness at once, and fell into a reverie.
‘The history of her escape is very simple.’
‘Very.’
‘You know I always had wondered, when my father was telling any of the circumstances of the fire to me, how it could be that a woman could sleep so soundly as to be unaware of her horrid position till it was too late even to give shout or sound of any kind.’
‘Well, I think that would have been possible, considering her long wearisome journey. People have often been suffocated in their beds before they awoke. But it was hardly likely a body would be completely burnt to ashes as this was assumed to be, though nobody seemed to see it at the time. And how positive the surgeon was too, about those bits of bone! Why he should have been so, nobody can tell. I cannot help saying that if it has ever been possible to find pure stupidity incarnate, it was in that jury of Carriford. There existed in the mass the stupidity of twelve and not the penetration of one.’
‘Is she quite well?’ said Springrove.
‘Who?—O, my sister, Cytherea. Thank you, nearly well, now. I’ll call her.’