"There was a child . . . We have hurt her, I fear. Tell George to jump down and inquire."
But Tilda was not hurt. On the contrary, she was running and dodging the crowd at that moment as fast as her hurt leg permitted. For in the press of it, not three yards away, by the light of the side lamp, she had caught sight of Dr. Glasson and Gavel.
They were on foot, and Gavel had seen her, she could make no doubt.
He was bearing down straight upon her.
Not until she had run fifty yards did she pluck up courage to look back. Gavel was nowhere in sight. The car had come to a standstill, and the people were yelling. Was it after her? Was this the hue-and-cry?
They were certainly yelling—and behaving too, in the strangest fashion. They seemed by one impulse to be running from the car and crowding back towards the gate. They were fighting—positively fighting—their way into the field. The police could not stop them, but were driven in with a rush; and in the centre of this rush Tilda caught sight of Gavel again. His back was turned to her. He was struggling for admission, and like a maniac. Glasson she could not see.
Sir Elphinstone had climbed out of the car, and came striding back demanding to know what was the matter. It stuck in his head that a child had been hurt, perhaps killed.
A dozen voices answered—
"The roundabouts!" "Explosion at the roundabouts!" "Engine blown up— twenty killed an' injured, they say!"
"Explosion? . . . Nonsense!"
Tilda saw him thrust his way into the gateway, his tall figure towering above the pack there as he halted and gazed down the hill. In the darkness and confusion it was easy enough for her to scramble upon the hedge unobserved, and at the cost of a few scratches only. From the top of the hedge she too gazed.