"Father! Perhaps he is not so well," exclaimed Katherine, with a quick terror gripping at her heart. Then she thought with a swift compunction of the stranger they were bringing home, and wondered if her father would resent the intrusion.
But Phil had run out again just as the boat grounded against the bank, and now he began shouting: "Oh, do come quick; Father is dreadfully ill, and Nellie does not know what to do with him."
"You go first; the boy will help me," said Jervis Ferrars, hurrying
Katherine out of the boat.
She landed with a bound and tried to run, but her water-logged garments clung so closely about her that she could only walk, and the few steps to the door seemed like a mile.
"Nellie says it is a stroke, and she is afraid Father is dying," sobbed Phil, who was running to and fro in a distracted fashion.
A faint cry broke from Katherine, and she caught at the doorpost to save herself. Yet even in that moment she realized that this was only what she had been expecting every time that she had returned from an absence all the winter through. But to-day found her so shaken and unfit for strain that it was not wonderful she broke down, feeling that this last disaster was too great to be borne. A moment she clung there sick and faint, while the ground under her feet seemed to rise up like the waves of the sea; then the frightened wailing of Beth and Lotta reached her ears, and steadied her nerves to meet the demands upon her.
"Poor mites, how frightened they must be!" she murmured to herself, then stumbled forward again, crossing the store and entering the kitchen.
'Duke Radford lay on the floor. Doubtless he had fallen so, and Mrs. Burton had been unable to lift him; but there was a pillow under his head and a rug laid over him. He was breathing still, otherwise Katherine would have believed him already dead.
"Oh, Nellie, this is dreadful! Whatever shall we do?" she cried, her voice sharp with pain.
"If only we could get a doctor I wouldn't mind so much," sobbed
Mrs. Burton. "But that is an impossibility."