to those who by chance noticed him, no more
than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and
confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd
now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village
street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he
had kept it hidden all the evening,--the tiny creature was shivering
violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death
which is instinctive to so many animals,--and a vague wish to soothe its
fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not
trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on
the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not
speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving
hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police
officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the
number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that
potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without
any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the
next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded
as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act,
and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his
selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only
child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the
fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,--that,
and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he
had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time--only last night he had
admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,--his handsome head,
his rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past
culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,--only last
night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and
kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom
had collected and placed on his pillow,--only last night he had been
touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little
"Kiddie,"--and now,--within the space of twenty-four hours, both father
and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the
speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its
merciless wheels. Was it ri