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The sun set, and darkness came on; the girls agreed to watch in different directions, from whence they could command the approaches to the house. Biddy was naturally stationed at the kitchen end of the house, which looked towards the bush. Poor Mrs Berrington's alarm became greater and greater.
Inspector Field bent down and fumbled on the floor. He had touched a patch of something wet. When he rose his fingers were red as if the dye had come out of the carpet. "Blood," he said, as if in answer to Berrington's interrogative glance. "Very stupid of us not to think of something like this before. But these carpets are so thick and of so dark a colour.
Biddy and Betty were busy packing up the cooking utensils, while the ladies were employed in filling their trunks with their clothes and the most valuable articles they possessed. Poor Mrs Berrington's state can better be imagined than described. Her sister's time was much taken up in endeavouring to calm her alarm. The captain again went out.
She was very deep, but she had never been so deep as when she made up her mind to mention the scandal of the house of Berrington to her visitor and intimated to him that Laura Wing regarded herself as near enough to it to receive from it a personal stain. 'I'm extremely sorry to hear of Mrs. Berrington's misconduct, he continued gravely, standing before her.
"I've got it. The lame man of No. 100 Audley Place!" Berrington's exclamation of surprise was not lost upon Inspector Field. He stood obviously waiting for the gallant officer to say something. As there was a somewhat long pause, the inspector took up the parable for himself. "In a great many cases that come under our hands, so many give us a chance," he said. "We allow something for luck.
Again, as to the genuineness of Berrington's letter she did not entertain the shadow of a doubt. Nobody, not even an expert, could succeed in making a successful forgery of the dashing hand-writing of Berrington. "If you will come this way," Sartoris said quietly, "we shall be more comfortable. As the evening is by no means warm you will perhaps not object to the temperature of my room.
Berrington's room?" he then asked. "Yes. But I am Mr. Berrington. What is it you want?" "You are? Are you Mr. Michael Berrington?" "Yes." "Oh, then you had better come with us now." "Whom are you carrying? What has happened?" Without answering he moved onward down the corridor, with the stretcher. I walked a little way ahead, and at the room numbered eighty-eight, Mrs. Stapleton's room, I knocked.
"Looking round the table I can see four girls at least who are envying you from the bottom of their hearts. Now could any society woman be miserable under those circumstances?" Beatrice flushed a little as she toyed nervously with her bread. Berrington's words were playful enough, but there was a hidden meaning behind them that Beatrice did not fail to notice.
Accordingly, when in compliance with Lord Berrington's politeness he received his chair, and saw him remove to a sofa beside a very beautiful woman, in the bloom of youth, Thaddeus supposed her manner might resemble the rest of Miss Dundas's friends, and never directed his glance a second time to her figure.
Berrington's agitation deepened. With all her distress and sorrow, Beatrice did not fail to notice it. "Perhaps you will go down to the office and see at once, Mark," Beatrice suggested. Ventmore went off obediently enough. Berrington stood watching him for a moment, then he turned to Beatrice and laid his hand gently on her arm.
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