She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft, twining arms, and set off on his errand.
When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At last one of them asked her if she had heard the news.
"No! What news?" she answered.
"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"
Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of the fearful occurrence.
She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one subject.
In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.
Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.
"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"
"No," quivered out poor Mary.