She picked up the flaring candle and held it over the fallen chair.
Mr. Wedderburn’s cloak—she had seen him in it an hour ago.
She turned across the room, the candle shook and dripped in her hand.
She was nearing the window; the candle cast a ragged light through the shadows.
“Jerome—” she whispered fast and fearfully. “Come here—there is something here—”
Backing against the wall she stared down at the window-seat.
“God!” she shrieked suddenly. “It is a man!” The candle clattered from her slack fingers to the floor; the room was in complete darkness. Delia turned wildly through the blackness and caught Jerome Caryl’s arm.
“Who is it?” she cried. “Whom do you think it can be? Nay, answer me—could it be—he? Ah, no, my God—it is not possible—”
“Hush! hush!” said Jerome gently. “I must get a light.”
“No, no, I could not bear to look,” she shuddered wildly. “I will not bear it—why should you ask me to? It was his cloak—”
Jerome tenderly disengaged her hand. “Take courage,” he said. “If it should be Perseus he may not be—he may be—living.”
She let him go; her hands fell to her sides.
“Perseus,” she echoed vaguely. “Do you think it might be Perseus?”
She turned and crept along the wall; falling to her knees, she put her hands out through the dark, feeling blindly for what she knew was there.
“Andrew, Andrew,” she said crazily—“Ah!” She drew back, for she had touched something—something soft—velvet—a velvet sleeve—she pressed her face against the wall, her hands over it, and her fallen hair, and when Jerome reëntered with a lantern she did not look up.
He crossed at once to the window, holding the light; it revealed her crouching away with hidden face and close beside her Sir Perseus, full on his back, his hands clutched in his disordered clothes, as if his last act had been the defense of something he had hidden in his breast. “Now here is an end of thy work,” said Jerome quietly.
He set the lantern on the window-seat and sinking on his knees, lifted Sir Perseus someway from the floor. “Delia—bring me the wine,” he said. “I think he still breathes—”
Mechanically and heavily, she obeyed him; poured it out and handed it. “So it is Perseus,” she repeated.
“I think we are betrayed,” said Jerome Caryl evenly. “Now, who was it?” He laid his hand over the heart of the wounded man; then forced some wine between his lips.