"Go?" he said, slowly, repeating her words mechanically. "Go?—but where am I to go?"
"Ah," she gasped, beating her hands together, "how stupid you are, how cold, how cruel! Where are you to go? Why—but no, stay, it will be better if you come with me. Will you come—at once, directly? Here is your hat," and she caught up that article of apparel from off the table, and held it out to him. "Oh, do make haste," she cried, "do come with me at once."
But Mr. Tremain was not to be carried off in so unceremonious a manner. He took the hat out of her hand and laid it back on the table, before he said very quietly:
"My dear Miss Dick, I will go with you to any place you may name; but first, I do beg of you, compose yourself a little, and tell me what it is you want me to do; who it is you want me to see?"
Miss Darling pulled herself together with an evident effort.
"I want you to go with me to Ludlow Street Jail," she said, speaking very slowly, "to see Patricia Hildreth."
Had a cannon ball dropped at his feet, or the foundations of the house given way beneath him, Mr. Tremain could not have experienced a more sudden or appalling shock. The words reached him, but it seemed as if they came from miles away. He saw the dark, alert figure standing before him, whose bright, dark eyes never left his face, whose nervously working hands were so suggestive; but it lost all identity to him. It was not Dick Darling who stood there, entreating him to make haste, not to delay; it was some phantom, some Nemesis from out the past, whose words and entreaties were as unreal as the shadows that came creeping out of the corners, revealing bit by bit the cunningly-concealed spectres.
"Come with you to Ludlow Street!" he gasped at last, "to see Patricia Hildreth. What do you mean?"
"Oh, I mean what I say," cried Dick, her voice high and strained; "it is quite true. She is there. She has been arrested."
"Arrested!" gasped Philip. "Arrested—Patricia!"