"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.
The body of Henry Little was not there.
Grace gave her purse to the women, and leaned heavily on Mr. Ransome's arm again. He supported her out of the works.
As soon as they were alone, she said, "Is Jael Dence alive or dead?"
"She was alive half an hour ago."
"Where is she?"
"At the hospital."
"Take me to the hospital."
He took her to the hospital, and soon they stood beside a clean little bed, in which lay the white but still comely face of Jael Dence: her luxuriant hair was cut close, and her head bandaged; but for her majestic form, she looked a fair, dying boy.
"Stand back," said Grace, "and let me speak to her." Then she leaned over Jael, where she lay.
Gentle women are not all gentleness. Watch them, especially in contact with their own sex, and you shall see now and then a trait of the wild animal. Grace Carden at this moment was any thing but dove-like; it was more like a falcon the way she clutched the bedclothes, and towered over that prostrate figure, and then, descending slowly nearer and nearer, plunged her eyes into those fixed and staring orbs of Jael Dence.
So she remained riveted. Had Jael been conscious, and culpable, nothing could have escaped a scrutiny so penetrating.
Even unconscious as she was, Jael's brain and body began to show some signs they were not quite impervious to the strange magnetic power which besieged them so closely. When Grace's eyes had been close to hers about a minute, Jael Dence moved her head slightly to the left, as if those eyes scorched her.
But Grace moved her own head to the right, rapid as a snake, and fixed her again directly.
Jael Dence's bosom gave a heave.
"Where--is--Henry Little?" said Grace, still holding her tight by the eye, and speaking very slowly, and in such a tone, low, but solemn and commanding; a tone that compelled reply.
"Where--is--Henry Little?"
When this was so repeated, Jael moved a little, and her lips began to quiver.
"Where--is--Henry Little?"
Jael's lips opened feebly, and some inarticulate sounds issued from them.
"Where--is--Henry Little?"
Jael Dence, though unconscious, writhed and moaned so that the head nurse interfered, and said she could not have the patient tormented.
Ransome waved her aside, but taking Grace Carden's hand drew her gently away.
She made no positive resistance; but, while her body yielded and retired, her eye remained riveted on Jael Dence, and her hand clutched the air like a hawk's talons, unwilling to lose her prey, and then she turned so weak, Ransome had to support her to her carriage.
As Grace's head sunk on Ransome's shoulder, Jael Dence's eyes closed for the first time.
As Ransome was lifting Grace Carden into the carriage, she said, in a sort of sleepy voice, "Is there no way out of these works but one?"
"Not that I know of; but I will go at once and see. Shall he drive you home?"
"Yes. No--to Dr. Amboyne."
Dr. Amboyne was gone to Woodbine Villa.
She waited in his study, moving about the room all the time, with her face of marble, and her poor restless hands.
At last the doctor returned: they told him at the door Miss Carden was there; he came in to her with both hands extended, and his face working with emotion.
She fell sobbing into his arms; sobbing, but not a tear.
"Is there any hope?"
"I have one. May he not have left the country in a fit of despair?
He often threatened. He talked of going to the United States."
"So he did. Ah, he called on me yesterday afternoon. Might not that have been to bid me good-by?"
She looked so imploringly in Dr. Amboyne's face that he assented, though full of doubt.
And now there was a ring at the bell, and Mr. Ransome came to say there was a little postern gate by which Mr. Little might possibly have gone out and the porter not seen him; and, what was more, this gate, by all accounts, had been recently opened: it was closed before Bolt and Little took the premises.
Mr. Ransome added that he should now make it his business to learn, if possible, whether it had been opened by Mr. Little's orders.
Grace thanked him earnestly, and looked hopeful; so did Dr. Amboyne.
"But, doctor," said Grace, "if he has gone away at all, he must have told somebody. Even if there was nobody he loved, he would tell--ah! Mr. Bolt!!"
"You are right. Let us go to him at once."
They found Mr. Bolt in quite a different frame of mind from their own; he was breathing vengeance. However, he showed some feeling for Grace, and told the doctor plainly he feared the worst. Little had been downhearted for some time, and at last he (Bolt) had lost patience with him, and had proposed to him to take an annual payment of nine hundred pounds instead of a share, and leave the concern.