As soon as he could collect breath to speak, “Call all!” he cried, “call all! Ring the great bell, call all—get ladders, ropes—run—ride—she is gone—she is lost—swept over the black falls at Hawkshurt! Oh God! oh God!” and he fell, as it seemed, senseless to the earth.
Acting—sheer acting, all!
They raised him and carried him up stairs, and laid him on the bed—on her bed—the bed whereon he had kissed her lips last night, and clasped her lovely form which was now haply entwined in the loathsome coils of the slimy mud-eels.
He shuddered. He could not endure it. He opened his eyes again, and feigning to recover his senses, chid the men from his presence, and again commanded, so peremptorily, that none dare disobey him, that every servant—man, woman, maid or boy—should begone to the place he had named, nor return till they brought back his lost angel’s body.
They believed that he was mad; but mad or sane, his anger was so terrible at all times, and now so fierce, so frantic and appalling, that none dared to gainsay him.
Within half an hour after his return, save himself, there was not a human being left within the walls of Widecomb Manor.
Then he arose and descended slowly, but with a firm foot and unchanged brow, into the great library of the Hall. It was a vast, gloomy, oblong chamber, nearly a hundred feet in length, wainscoted and shelved with old black-oak, and dimly lighted by a range of narrow windows, with dark-stained glass and heavily wrought stone mullions.
There was a dull wood-fire smouldering under the yawning arch of the chimney-piece, and in front of the fire stood an old oaken table, and a huge leathern arm-chair.
Into this Jasper cast himself, with his back to the door, which he had left open, in the absence of his mind. For nearly an hour he sat there without moving hand or foot, gazing gloomily at the fire. But, at the end of that time, he started, and seemed to recollect himself, opened the drawer of the writing-table, and took out of it the record of his wretched victim’s marriage.
He read it carefully, over and over again, and then crushed it in his hand, saying, “Well, all is safe now, THANK GOD!” Yes, he thanked God for the success of the murder he had done! “But here goes to make assurance doubly sure.”