“A quarrel in which one is killed is apt to look like murder.”
These words gave them all a shivering sensation. Even Jim’s shoulders went up to his ears as if he shared the involuntary shudder—and Mrs. Surtees said again, drying her eyes, “It is as if we were mixed up in it. Poor man, poor man, cut off in a moment, without a thought!”
“It appears that he is a well known and very bad character,” said Dr. Barrère. “I feel almost more sorry for the poor wretch that did it. The cry he gave when he saw what he had done still rings in my ears.”
“Then you think he did not mean it, Arnold?”
“God knows! You would have said he meant everything that passion and rage could mean to see the blows; but that cry—”
“He repented, perhaps—when it was too late.”
“It was horror—it was consternation. It was the cry of a man who suddenly saw what he had done.”
There was a pause of sympathetic horror and pity. Then Jim Surtees went back to the writing-table, and Dr. Barrère continued his conversation with the ladies, which, however they tried to break into other and happier subjects, returned again and again to the terrible scene from which he had just come. They spoke in low tones together over the fire—the doctor recounting over and over again the feelings with which he had contemplated the extraordinary, sudden tragedy, the rapidity with which all its incidents followed each other, leaving him scarcely time to cry out before all was over. He was naturally full of it, and could speak of nothing else, and his betrothed and her mother, always sympathetic, threw themselves entirely into the excitement which still possessed him. It was late when he rose to go away, soothed and calmed, and with a sense of having at last exhausted the incident. It startled him as he turned round, after taking leave of Mrs. Surtees, to see that Jim was still there. And the aspect of the young man was sufficiently remarkable. The candles on the writing-table behind which he sat had burned low. They had escaped from the little red shades which had been placed over them, and were flaring low, like a level sun in the evening, upon the figure behind, which, with his head bowed in his hands and shoulders up to his ears, seemed unconscious of all that was passing. Jim neither saw nor heard the doctor move. He was absorbed in some all-important matter of his own.
Next day Dr. Barrère was still deeply occupied by the scene he had seen. He was summoned for the coroner’s inquest, and he was, as was natural, questioned by everybody he met upon a subject which was in all men’s mouths. It was equally natural that he should return next evening to bring the account of all the encounters he had gone through and all that was news on the subject to Agnes and her mother. Once more he noted with surprise that Jim was in the drawing-room. Was he turning over a new leaf? Had he seen the folly of his ways at last?
They were sitting as before over the fire, Dr. Barrère telling his story, the ladies listening with absorbed attention. The interest of this terrible tragedy which had taken place almost within their kin, which they were seeing through his eyes, was absorbing to them. They wanted to know everything, the most minute details, what questions had been asked him, and what he had replied. Jim was still behind backs at the writing-table with the two candles in their red shades, which did not betray his face, but threw a strange light upon his hands and the occupation in which he seemed to be absorbed. He was playing an old-fashioned game with small colored glass balls on a round board, called solitaire in the days when it was in fashion. The little tinkle of the balls as he placed them in the necessary order came in during the pauses in the talk like a faint accompaniment. But no one looked at him: they were too much absorbed in Dr. Barrère’s report.