“She’s run away,” said Tom, “but what did you ever see queer about her?”
“I thought at first that she was a real old sort. Prime cut, as one might say. And when she used to be a little faddy, I thought it was just her particular goodness. She was always ready enough to pass the time of day, and her and me were good friends—though I do remember she did once ask me why I came knocking at her kitchen door and running away, but I was busy that day, and let it pass as, maybe, her sort of joke. But about a week ago, she asked me why I made faces at her; and my missus spoke quite sharp to her, telling her not to put such stories about. But last night, sir, I thought it was turning serious. For she came into the shop and said I was a-putting poison on the meat—she believed I had rubbed lucifer matches on it. I wasn’t here at the time, and my missus was glad to say anything to pacify her, thinking she’d been drinking—though she doesn’t look one of that sort.”
Tom stood aghast! Here, then, when and where nobody had thought of looking for it, the whole mystery stood explained. Clementina was the demented person who had sent the blank letter and the black-edged letter. She had imagined the runaway knocks, and what else? Might not the smashed china and the escaped gas be traced to the doings of the same wild hand?
“If I were in your place,” went on the butcher, “I should be thankful she has taken herself away. It’s my belief she is mad. There’s many a one who, in the end, kills somebody, who has shown no more signs of it beforehand. It ought to be somebody’s public duty to look after such before they do mischief, if there’s nobody of their own that cares enough for them to keep them out of harm’s way.”
Tom went home full of this news. It was very astonishing to Lucy, but Miss Latimer was in a measure prepared for it, as she owned the idea had already crossed her mind, though she little expected it would have such swift corroboration.
Lucy’s first thought was an immense thankfulness that Hugh’s life had been preserved from all risks; her second, a remembrance of the child’s instinctive shrinking from Clementina; her third, a wave of pity for this disordered mind, for there could be no lingering doubt that Dr. Ivery’s diagnosis was correct.
