She rose, and
weak with emotion sank back on to the stone. The people were streaming
past her now, talking excitedly. Somebody came up to her and stood over
her.
Oh, Heaven, it was Geoffrey!
"Is it you?" she gasped. "Elizabeth said that you were murdered."
"No, no. It was not I; it is that poor fellow Johnson, the auctioneer.
Jones shot him. I was standing next him. I suppose your sister thought
that I fell. He was not unlike me, poor fellow."
Beatrice looked at him, went red, went white, then burst into a flood of
tears.
A strange pang seized upon his heart. It thrilled through him, shaking
him to the core. Why was this woman so deeply moved? Could it be----?
Nonsense; he stifled the thought before it was born.
"Don't cry," Geoffrey said, "the people will see you, Beatrice" (for the
first time he called her by her christian name); "pray do not cry. It
distresses me. You are upset, and no wonder. That fellow Beecham Bones
ought to be hanged, and I told him so. It is his work, though he never
meant it to go so far. He's frightened enough now, I can tell you."
Beatrice controlled herself with an effort.
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