“Why, marm, where be you going? Dear heart, you have no bonnet on! What is the matter? Who is this?”
“Oh!” cried Alice, in agony; “what shall I do?—where shall I fly?” The door above opened. Alice heard, started, and the next moment was in the street. She ran on breathlessly, and like one insane. Her mind was, indeed, for the time, gone; and had a river flowed before her way, she would have plunged into an escape from a world that seemed too narrow to hold a father and his child.
But just as she turned the corner of a street that led into the more public thoroughfares, she felt her arm grasped, and a voice called out her name in surprised and startled accents.
“Heavens, Mrs. Butler! Alice! What do I see? What is the matter?”
“Oh, sir, save me!—you are a good man—a great man—save me—he is returned!”
“He! who? Mr. Butler?” said the banker (for that gentleman it was) in a changed and trembling voice.
“No, no—ah, not he!—I did not say he—I said my father—my, my—ah—look behind—look behind—is he coming?”
“Calm yourself, my dear young friend—no one is near. I will go and reason with your father. No one shall harm you—I will protect you. Go back—go back, I will follow—we must not be seen together.” And the tall banker seemed trying to shrink into a nutshell.
“No, no,” said Alice, growing yet paler, “I cannot go back.”
“Well, then, just follow me to the door—your servant shall get you your bonnet, and accompany you to my house, where you can wait till I return. Meanwhile I will see your father, and rid you, I trust, of his presence.”