They saw the women, and ran to them. One of the men was a labourer; the
other, better dressed, looked like a foreman of works. He was the first
who arrived on the spot.
"Enough to frighten you out of your senses, ladies," he said civilly.
"It's a case of suicide, I should say, by the look of it."
"For God's sake, let us do something to help him!" Iris burst out. "I
know him! I know him!"
Fanny, equal to the emergency, asked Miss Henley for her handkerchief,
joined her own handkerchief to it, and began to bandage the wound. "Try
if his pulse is beating," she said quietly to her mistress. The foreman
made himself useful by examining the suicide's pockets. Iris thought
she could detect a faint fluttering in the pulse. "Is there no doctor
living near?" she cried. "Is there no carriage to be found in this
horrible place?"
The foreman had discovered two letters. Iris read her own name on one
of them. The other was addressed "To the person who may find my body."
She tore the envelope open. It contained one of Mr. Vimpany's cards,
with these desperate words written on it in pencil: "Take me to the
doctor's address, and let him bury me, or dissect me, whichever he
pleases.
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