Mrs. Vincent, who scarcely could endure to hear, and did not understand, rushed forward while he was speaking, and seized him by the arm Leave the room! she cried with sudden passion He has made some impudent mistake, doctor. God help me! will you let my child be insulted? Leave the room, sir leave the room, I say! This is my daughter, Miss Vincent, lying here. Mary, ring the bell he must be turned out of the room. Doctor, doctor! you are a man; you will never let my child be insulted because her brother is away.
What does it mean? cried Dr. Rider go outside and I will come and speak to you. Miss Vincent is in a most dangerous state perhaps dying. If you know her
Know her, doctor! you are speaking of my child, cried Mrs. Vincent, who faced the intruder with blazing eyes. The man held his ground, not impertinently, but with steadiness.
I know her fast enough, he said; Ive tracked her every step of the way; not to hurt the ladys feelings, I cant help what Im doing, sir. Its murder; I cant let her out of my sight.
Mrs. Vincent clasped her hands together with a grasp of desperation. What is murder? she said, in a voice that echoed through the room. The doctor, with an exclamation of horror, repeated the same question. Murder! it seemed to ring through the shuddering house.
Its hard upon a lady, not to say her mother, said the man, compassionately; but I have to do my duty. A gentlemans been shot where shes come from. Shes the first as suspicion falls on. It often turns out as the one thats first suspected isnt the criminal. Dont fret, maam, he added, with a glance of pity, perhaps its only as a witness shell be wanted but I must stay here. I darent let her out of my sight.
There was a dreadful pause. Mrs. Vincent looked up at the two men before her with a heartrending appeal in her eyes. Would anybody tell her what it meant? would nobody interfere for Susan? She moaned aloud inarticulate in her voiceless misery. And Arthur is not here! was the outcry which at last burst from her heart. She was beyond feeling
what this was her senses were confused with extremity of suffering. She only felt that another blow had been dealt at her, and that Arthur was not here to help to bear it. Then the stranger, who had put himself so horribly in possession of Susans sickroom, once more began to speak. The widow could not tell what he said the voice rang in her ears like a noise of unmeaning sound, but it stirred her to a flush of female passion, as violent as it was shortlived. She sprang forward and took hold of his arm with her white little trembling hand: Not here not here! cried the mother in her passion. With her feeble force excited into something irresistible, she put the astonished stranger out of the room before he knew what she was doing. If an infant had done it the man could not have been more utterly astonished. Outside, the people of the house were standing in an excited group. She thrust the dreadful messenger of justice out with those hands that shook with tremors of anguish and weakness. She shut the door upon him with all her feeble strength, locked it, put a chair against it; then she stumbled and fell as she stretched out for another fell down upon her knees, poor soul! and remained so, forgetting, as it seemed, how she came there, and gradually, by instinct, putting together the hands which trembled like leaves in the wind Lord, Lord! cried the mother, hovering on the wild verge between passion and insensibility. She called Him by name only as utter anguish alone knows how; she had nothing to tell Him; she could only call upon Him by His name.
Dr. Rider took the half-insensible form up in his arms and carried her to the bedside, where Susan still lay motionless with her eyes wide open, in an awful abstraction and unconsciousness. He put Mrs. Vincent tenderly into the chair, and held the hands that shook with that palsied irrestrainable tremor. No one can bring her to life but you, said the doctor, turning the face of the miserable mother towards her child. She has kept her senses till she reached you; when she was here she no longer wanted them; she has left her life in your hands. He held those hands fast as he spoke; pressed them gently, but firmly; repeated his words over again. In your hands, said the doctor once more, struck to his heart with horror and pity. Susans bare beautiful arm lay on the coverlid, white, round, and full, like marble. The doctor, who had never seen the fair Saxon girl who was Mrs. Vincents daughter a week ago, thought in his heart that this full developed form and face, rapt to grandeur by the extremity of woe, gave no contradiction to the accusation he had just heard with so much horror. That week had obliterated Susans soft girlish innocence and the simplicity of her eighteen years. She was a grand form as she lay there upon that bed might have loved to desperation fallen killed. Unconsciously he uttered aloud the thought in his heart Perhaps it would be better she should die!