She began to move towards the garden, Jack stumbling beside her, almost running to keep up with her eager stride.
"I doant rightly know. Policeman's there. Mike O'Flynn had a gun and stood agin' him, and kept on saying, 'I've done 'im in. Praise be to Mary! I've done him in.'"
"Mike?"
She frowned a little, as though she did not quite understand. The garden was dark, with curious flashes of crimson light through the overhanging trees. She reached the backdoor of the house. It swung idly in the wind, but the women who had entered it to search for jugs and pails had gone.
Mary stood in the yard beside it, listening to heavy footsteps approaching up the garden path—the path that led through a wicket-gate into the road on the way to the Flying Fox.
She ought to have gone forward into the house and lit the lamps and made things ready. Only it was too late now. It was stupid, of course, to be unprepared, but she wanted to welcome him at the doorway a second time. She smiled to herself. Now, at least, she might have him. She might touch him again. However badly he was hurt she would nurse him back to health. He was young and wiry. Mike was an old soldier, but he probably hadn't shot very straight.
Constable Burton came through the garden door into the yard. She saw his round, solemn face in the flickering light. How silly of him to look so solemn, when he was being kinder to her than ever he had been before ... bringing her David, David, David.... There was another figure behind him, and something lying between them on a hurdle.
"Oh, do be careful! Mind the step," she called, as they stumbled into the yard. "You'll hurt him."
"We can't do much harm, Missus Robson," said the policeman.
"Is he badly hurt?"