"I didn't think of you. I didn't know you were here. I was a dreadful coward, but I felt I was lost a good deal more than I meant to be. And generally when I'm frightened, I ask God to take care of me; but I couldn't, and I felt He was a million miles away from me, and wouldn't dream of coming near me. And then I knew it was because I must have run outside the Door, and wasn't safe any more!"
She spoke with feverish intensity. Tom looked at her and then at Chris in a puzzled sort of way. Then he sat her down on the broad balustrade at the bottom of the steps.
"Take yer time, missy. Tell me just how you come to be so far away from home this morning!"
Then Harebell poured it all out, every bit of her trouble. She felt that she could even tell Tom about Peter's deceit, after making him promise that he would not tell any one. And Tom listened and rubbed his head, and then delivered his verdict.
"You must go back, missy; there's no help for it. You must get you back!"
Harebell began to cry. She was tired and hungry. She began to wonder how she had dared to run away in such a fashion.
"Aunt Diana will be so very, very angry."
"But she'll be in a terrible state about you now. You can't bide alone in the world, trampin' the roads without food and money. It be a stoopid thing to do—"
"I s'pose you haven't got a cottage yet? Couldn't you take me somewhere? I'm afraid of Aunt Diana now. She'll never forgive me!"
"You must get you back," Tom repeated with conviction. "It be bad you're comin' off in that fashion, but every hour you stay away, it be badder!"