Put Yourself in His Place | Page 8

reached the top of the stairs, when she gave a
terrible scream that rang through the whole house.

Mrs. Little rushed upstairs, and found her clinging to the balusters, and
pointing at the floor, with eyes protruding and full of horror. Her
candle-stick had fallen from her benumbed hand; but the hall-lamp
revealed what her finger was quivering and pointing at: a dark fluid
trickling slowly out into the lobby from beneath the bedroom door.
It was blood.
The room was burst into, and the wretched, tottering wife, hanging
upon her sobbing servants, found her lover, her husband, her child's
father, lying on the floor, dead by his own hand; stone dead. A terrible
sight for strangers to see; but for her, what words can even shadow the
horror of it!
I drop the veil on her wild bursts of agony, and piteous appeals to him
who could not hear her cries.
The gaping wound that let out that precious life, her eye never ceased
to see it, nor her own heart to bleed with it, while she lived.
She was gently dragged away, and supported down to another room.
Doctor Amboyne came and did what he could for her; and that was--
nothing.
At this time she seemed stupefied. But when Guy came beaming into
the room to tell her he had got her the money, a terrible scene occurred.
The bereaved wife uttered a miserable scream at sight of him, and
swooned away directly.
The maids gathered round her, laid her down, and cut her stays, and
told Guy the terrible tidings, in broken whispers, over her insensible
body.
He rose to his feet horrified. He began to gasp and sob. And he yearned
to say something to comfort her. At that moment his house, his heart,
and all he had, were hers.
But, as soon as she came to herself, and caught sight of him, she
screamed out, "Oh, the sight of him! the sight of him!" and swooned
away again.
Then the women pushed him out of the room, and he went away with
uneven steps, and sick at heart.
He shut himself up in Raby Hall, and felt very sad and remorseful. He
directed his solicitor to render Mrs. Little every assistance, and supply
her with funds. But these good offices were respectfully declined by Mr.
Joseph Little, the brother of the deceased, who had come from

Birmingham to conduct the funeral and settle other matters.
Mr. Joseph Little was known to be a small master-cutler, who had risen
from a workman, and even now put blades and handles together with
his own hands, at odd times, though he had long ceased to forge or
grind.
Mr. Raby drew in haughtily at this interference.
It soon transpired that Mr. James Little had died hopelessly insolvent,
and the L1900 would really have been ingulfed.
Raby waited for this fact to sink into his sister's mind; and then one day
nature tugged so at his heart-strings, that he dashed off a warm letter
beginning--"My poor Edith, let bygones be bygones," and inviting her
and her boy to live with him at Raby Hall.
The heart-broken widow sent back a reply, in a handwriting scarcely
recognizable as hers. Instead of her usual precise and delicate hand, the
letters were large, tremulous, and straggling, and the lines slanted
downward.
"Write to me, speak to me, no more. For pity's sake let me forget there
is a man in the world who is my brother and his murderer.
"EDITH."
Guy opened this letter with a hopeful face, and turned pale as ashes at
the contents.
But his conscience was clear, and his spirit high. "Unjust idiot!" he
muttered, and locked her letter up in his desk.
Next morning he received a letter from Joseph Little, in a clear, stiff,
perpendicular writing:
"SIR,--I find my sister-in-law wrote you, yesterday, a harsh letter,
which I do not approve; and have told her as much. Deceased's affairs
were irretrievable, and I blame no other man for his rash act, which
may God forgive! As to your kind and generous invitation, it deserves
her gratitude; but Mrs. Little and myself have mingled our tears
together over my poor brother's grave, and now we do not care to part.
Before your esteemed favor came to hand, it had been settled she
should leave this sad neighborhood and keep my house at Birmingham,
where she will meet with due respect. I am only a small tradesman; but
I can pay my debts, and keep the pot boiling. Will teach the boy some
good trade, and make him a useful member of society, if I am spared.
"I am, sir, yours respectfully,

"JOSEPH LITTLE."
"Sir,--I beg to acknowledge, with thanks, your respectable letter.
"As all direct communication between Mrs. James