She drew him, indeed almost dragged him, hither and thither, questioning him, and listening to everybody’s conjectures; for there were loud groups here of work-people and towns-people.

Some thought he was buried under the great chimney in the river, others intimated plainly their fear that he was blown to atoms.

At each suggestion Grace Carden’s whole body winced and quivered as if the words were sword cuts, but she would not be persuaded to retire.  “No, no,” she cried, “amongst so many, some one will guess right.  I’ll hear all they think, if I die on the spot:  die!  What is life to me now?  Ah! what is that woman saying?” And she hurried Ransome toward a work-woman who was haranguing several of her comrades.

The woman saw Ransome coming toward her with a strange lady.

“Ah!” said she, “here’s the constable.  Mr. Ransome, will ye tell me where you found the lass, yesternight?”

“She was lying on that heap of bricks:  I marked the place with two pieces of chalk; ay, here they are; her head lay here, and her feet here.”

“Well, then,” said the woman, “he will not be far from that place.  You clear away those bricks and rubbish, and you will find him underneath.  She was his sweetheart, that is well known here; and he was safe to be beside her when the place was blown up.”

“No such thing,” said Ransome, angrily, and casting a side-look at Grace.  “She lay on the second floor, and Mr. Little on the first floor.”

“Thou simple body,” said the woman.  “What’s a stair to a young man when a bonny lass lies awaiting him, and not a soul about?  They were a deal too close together all day, to be distant at night.”

A murmur of assent burst at once from all the women.

Grace’s body winced and quivered, but her marble face never stirred, nor did her lips utter a sound.

“Come away from their scandalous tongues,” said Ransome, eagerly.

“No,” said Grace; and such a “No.”  It was like a statue uttering a chip of its own marble.

Then she stood quivering a moment; then, leaving Ransome’s arm, she darted up to the place where Jael Dence had been found.

She stood like a bird on the broken masonry, and opened her beautiful eyes in a strange way, and demanded of all her senses whether the body of him she loved lay beneath her feet.

After a minute, during which every eye was riveted on her, she said, “I don’t believe it; I don’t feel him near me.  But I will know.”

She took out her purse full of gold, and held it up to the women.  “This for you, if you will help me.”  Then, kneeling down, she began to tear up the bricks and throw them, one after another, as far as her strength permitted.  The effect on the work-women was electrical:  they swarmed on the broken masonry, and began to clear it away brick by brick.  They worked with sympathetic fury, led by this fair creature, whose white hands were soon soiled and bloody, but never tired.  In less than an hour they had cleared away several wagon-loads of debris.