Mr. Hillary, the surgeon, gave it as his opinion that the wound
on the temple, no doubt caused before death, had rendered Lord Hartledon
insensible, and unable to extricate himself from the water. The mill and
cottage were built on what might be called an arm of the river. Lord
Hartledon had no business there at all; but the current was very strong;
and if, as was too probable, he had become almost disabled, he might have
drifted to it without being able to help himself; or he might have been
making for it, intending to land and rest in the cottage until help could
be summoned to convey him home. How he got into the water was not known.
Once in the water, the blow was easy enough to receive; he might have
struck against the estrade.
There is almost sure to be some miserable coincidence in these cases to
render them doubly unfortunate. For three weeks past, as the miller
testified--a respectable man named Floyd--his mill had not been deserted;
some one, man, boy, or woman, had always been there. On this afternoon it
was closed, mill and cottage too, and all were away. What might have been
simply a slight accident, had help been at hand, had terminated in an
awful death for the want of it.
It was eleven o'clock before anything like order was restored at
Hartledon, and the house left in quiet. The last person to quit it was
Dr. Ashton. Hedges, the butler, had been showing him out, and was
standing for a minute on the steps looking after him, and perhaps to
cool, with a little fresh air, his perplexed brow--for the man was a
faithful retainer, and the affair had shocked him in no common
degree--when he was accosted by Pike, who emerged stealthily from behind
one of the outer pillars, where he seemed to have been sheltering.
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