Mr. Coventry saw Mr. Carden nearly every day, and asked him was there no news of Little? The answer was always in the negative, and this surprised Coventry more and more.
When a whole month had elapsed, even he began to fancy strange things, and to nurse wild projects that had never entered his head before. He studied books of medical jurisprudence, and made all manner of experiments. He resumed his intimacy with Cole, and they were often closeted together.
Five weeks had elapsed, and Grace Carden had lost all her feverish energy, and remained passive, lethargic, fearing every thing, hoping nothing, but quivering all day with expectation of the next blow; for what had she left to expect now but sorrow in some form or other?
She often wished to visit Jael Dence again at the hospital; but for some time an invincible repugnance withheld her.
She asked Dr. Amboyne to go instead, and question the unhappy girl.
Dr. Amboyne did so; but Jael was now in a half-stupid condition, and her poor brain not clear enough to remember what she was wanted to remember. Her memory was full of gaps, and, unluckily, one of these gaps embraced the whole period between her battle with Hill and the present time.
At last Grace was irritated, and blamed the doctor for his failure.
She reminded him she had herself magnetized Jael, and had almost made her speak. She resolved to go to the hospital herself. "I'll make her tell me one thing," said she, "though I tear her heart out, and my own too."
She dressed plainly, and walked rapidly down toward the hospital.
There were two ways to it, but she chose the one that was sure to give her pain. She could not help it; her very feet dragged her to that fatal spot.
When she drew near the fatal bridge, she observed a number of persons collected on it, looking down in the river at some distance.
At the same time people began to hurry past her, making for the bridge.
She asked one of them what it was.
"Summut in the river," was the reply, but in a tone so full of meaning, that at these simple words she ran forward, though her knees almost gave way under her.
The bridge was not so crowded yet, but that she contrived to push in between two women, and look.
All the people were speaking in low murmurs. The hot weather had dried the river up to a stream in the middle, and, in midstream, about fifty yards from the foot of the bridge, was a pile of broken masonry, which had once been the upper part of Bolt and Little's chimney. It had fallen into water twelve feet deep; but now the water was not above five feet, and a portion of the broken bricks and tiles were visible, some just above, some just under the water.
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 passed 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 assented 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.