Part 95 (2/2)
At one side of this wreck jutted out the object on which all eyes were now fastened. At first sight it looked a crooked log of wood sticking out from among the bricks. Thousands, indeed, had pa.s.sed the bridge, and noticed nothing particular about it; but one, more observant or less hurried, had peered, and then pointed, and collected the crowd.
It needed but a second look to show that this was not a log of wood but the sleeve of a man's coat. A closer inspection revealed that the sleeve was not empty.
There was an arm inside that sleeve, and a little more under the water one could see distinctly a hand white and sodden by the water.
The dark stream just rippled over this hand, half veiling it at times, though never hiding it.
”The body will be jammed among the bricks,” said a by-stander; and all a.s.sented with awe.
”Eh! to think of its sticking out an arm like that!” said a young girl.
”Dead folk have done more than that, sooner than want Christian burial,”
replied an old woman.
”I warrant ye they have. I can't look at it.”
”Is it cloth, or what?” inquired another.
”It's a kind of tweed, I think.”
”What's that glittering on its finger?”
”It's a ring--a gold ring.”
At this last revelation there was a fearful scream, and Grace Carden fell senseless on the pavement.
A gentleman who had been hanging about and listening to the comments now darted forward, with a face almost as white as her own, and raised her up, and implored the people to get her a carriage.
It was Mr. Coventry. Little had he counted on this meeting.
Horror-stricken, he conveyed the insensible girl to her father's house.
He handed her over to the women, and fled, and the women brought her round; but she had scarcely recovered her senses, when she uttered another piercing scream, and swooned again.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
Coventry pa.s.sed a night of agony and remorse. He got up broken and despondent, and went straight to Woodbine Villa to do a good action.
He inquired for Miss Carden. They told him she was very ill. He expressed an earnest wish to see her. The servants told him that was impossible. n.o.body was allowed to see her but Dr. Amboyne. He went next day to Dr. Amboyne, and the doctor told him that Miss Carden was dangerously ill. Brain fever appeared inevitable.
”But, sir,” said Coventry, eagerly, ”if one could prove to her that those were not the remains of Henry Little?”
”How could you prove that? Besides, it would be no use now. She is delirious. Even should she live, I should forbid the subject for many a day. Indeed, none but the man himself could make her believe those remains are not his; and even he could not save her now. If he stood by her bedside, she would not know him.”
The doctor's lip trembled a little, and his words were so grave and solemn that they struck to the miserable man's marrow. He staggered away, like a drunken man, to his lodgings, and there flung himself on the floor, and groveled in an agony of terror and remorse.
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