A Confession

"Whom have you got there?"

"Jane--who seems to have lost her head."

"It's a mercy I haven't lost my life, sir, with burglars and murderers
all about the place," sobbed the girl, dropping on to the veranda.

Random promptly hauled her to her feet.

"Go and get a candle, and keep calm if you can," he said in an abrupt
military voice. "This is no time to play the fool."

His sharpness had great effect on the girl, and she became much more her
usual self. Hope lighted another match, and the trio proceeded through
the passage towards the kitchen, where Jane had left a lamp burning.
Seizing this from its bracket, Sir Frank retraced his way along the
passage to the pink parlor, followed closely by Hope and timorously
by Jane. A dreadful scene presented itself. The dainty little room
was literally smashed to pieces, as though a gigantic bull had been
wallowing therein. The lamp lay on the floor, surrounded by several
extinguished candles. It was a mercy that all the lights had been put
out when overturned, else the gim-crack cottage would have been long
since in a blaze. Chairs and tables and screens were also overturned,
and the one window had its rose-hued curtains torn down and its glass
broken, showing only too clearly the way in which the murderer had
escaped. And that the man who had attacked Mrs. Jasher was a murderer
could be seen from the stream of blood that ran slowly from Mrs.
Jasher's breast. Apparently she had been stabbed in the lungs, for the
wound was on the right side. There she lay, poor woman, in her tawdry
finery, crumpled up, battered and bruised, dead amongst the ruins of her
home. Jane immediately began to scream again.