She did not return, you
say, on the day following the catastrophe--when did she return?--when
did you next see her?'
'I never saw her again alive,' answered Wilderspin mournfully; 'but
you are so pale, Mr. Aylwin, and your eyes are so wild, I had better
defer telling you what little more there is to tell until you have
quite recovered from the shock.'
'No; now, now.'
Wilderspin looked with a deep sigh at the picture of 'Faith and
Love,' fired by the lights of sunset, where Winnie's face seemed
alive.
'Well,' said he, 'as she did not come, I worked at my painting of
"Ruth" all day; and on the next morning, as I was starting for
Primrose Court to seek her, Mrs. Gudgeon came kicking frantically at
the street-door. When it was opened, she came stamping upstairs, and
as I advanced to meet her, she shook her fists in my face, shouting
out: "I could tear your eyes out, you vagabones." "Why, what is the
matter?" I asked in great surprise. "You've bin and killed her,
that's all," said the woman, foaming at the mouth. She then told me
that her daughter, almost immediately on reaching home after having
left the studio in the company of my servant, had fallen down in a
swoon.
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