It jarred that just as we would have knelt for one silent prayer, Perrault’s voice broke on us.  “Ah! poor boy, it is better than if it lasted longer!  I saw that half-witted fellow, Billy Blake about.  So I don’t wonder at anything; but of course it was a mere accident, and I shall not press it.”

Scarcely hearing him, I had joined Mrs. Rowe in the endeavour to detach Alured from his dear companion, when there was poor Hester among us, with open horror-stricken eyes, and a wild, frightful shriek as she leapt forward; and no words can describe the misery of her voice as she called on her boy to look at her, and speak to her—­ gathering him into her bosom with a passionate, desperate clasp, that seemed almost an outrage on the calm awful stillness of the innocent child; and Alured involuntarily cried, “Oh, don’t,” while Fulk spoke to her kindly; but just then she saw her husband, and sprang on her feet, her eyes flashing, her hands stretched out, while she screamed out, “You here?  You dare to come here?  You, who killed him!” Fulk caught her arm, saying, “Hush!  Hester; come away.  It was a lamentable accident, but—­”

“Oh!” the laugh she gave was the most horrible thing I ever heard.  “Accident!  I tell you it has been his one thought to make accidents for Trevorsham!  And he hated my child—­my dear, noble, beautiful, only one!  He made him miserable, and murdered him at last!”

She gave another passionate kiss to the cheeks, and then just as I hoped she was going to let us lead her away, she darted from us, rushed past Mr. Cradock who was entering the porch, and in another moment, he hurrying after her, saw her rush down the steep grassy slope, and fling herself into the swollen rapid stream.

His shout brought them all out, and Fulk found him too in the river, holding her, and struggling with the stream, which winter had made full and violent, and the black darkness of the shadows made it hard to find any landing place, and he was nearly swept away before it was possible to get them out of the river; and Fulk was as completely drenched as he was when they brought poor Hester, quite unconscious, up to the house, and brought her to the room that had been prepared for her son; and there Dr. Brown and Arthur gave us plenty to do in filling hot-water baths and warming flannels, or rubbing the icy hands and feet.  Only that constant need of exertion could have borne us through the horror of it all.  But it was not over yet.  There was a call of “Ursula,” and as I ran down, I found Fulk standing at the bottom of the stairs with Alured in his arms looking like death!

“I found him on the parlour sofa, the little window and the escritoire open!” Fulk said breathlessly, “the villain!”

“I’m not hurt,” said dear Alured’s voice, faintly, but reassuringly, “Oh! put me down, Fulk.”

We did put him down on the floor—­there was no other place—­with his head on my lap, and I found strange voices asking him what Perrault had done to him.  “Oh! nothing! ’twasn’t that.  Yes, he’s gone, out by the window.”