"Somebody wanting Mr. Dalrymple, did you say?" Mrs. Trevor asked, waking up to a consciousness of his presence, and unaware that he had not spoken. Her faculties had been buried for the last twenty minutes in a yellow-backed novel. "Mr. Dalrymple is out still. I cannot understand his being so long."
"No, ma'am. There has been an accident," Slade's suppressed voice answered.
"An accident! Not to the dog-cart?"
"Yes, ma'am. It was not far from Captain Woodthorpe's, and Mr. and Mrs. Dalrymple have gone there. John has returned with a message. The horses ran away down a hill into a cart. Emperor is killed, and Prince—"
"And—and—" Mrs. Trevor could hardly speak in her impatience at his deliberate utterance. As if the horses mattered! She was angry at his putting them first, yet she knew that Slade was only trying to break his news gradually. Had he worse to tell?
"And my sister? And Mr. Dalrymple?"
"Mrs. Dalrymple was thrown out, ma'am; and at first she was not supposed to be hurt at all, but that is found to be a mistake. John does not know particulars. He was left behind when the horses ran away; and when he got to the spot he found Mr. Dalrymple unable to move, and Mrs. Dalrymple sitting on Prince's head to keep him down."
Mrs. Trevor exclaimed at this, knowing Julia's timidity with horses, "I always did say it was insane to keep such wild creatures," she added, with the instinctive desire to blame somebody which belongs to many people in trouble. "Mr. Dalrymple will believe me now! Is he very much hurt?"
"I am not sure, ma'am. Not so bad as was first thought," Slade answered dubiously. "I believe Mr. Dalrymple was very faint, and there's two ribs broken. But he's not, so to speak, in danger, and John's afraid as Mrs. Dalrymple is the worst. You see my mistress kept up, ma'am, and wouldn't give in, and nobody suspected it till, all of a sudden, she was took bad. She was so bad, Mrs. Ogilvie couldn't leave her to write to you, and John's brought a message asking if you could please go?"