"What is wrong?" he asked, in haste.
"It's mother,—her room,—and it's locked, and she won't answer," was the gasping reply.
Armitage sprang to the rear of the hall, leaned one second against the opposite wall, sent his foot with mighty impulse and muscled impact against the opposing lock, and the door flew open with a crash. The next instant Alice was bending over her senseless mother, and the captain was giving a hand in much bewilderment to the panting colonel, who was striving to clamber in at the window. The ministrations of Aunt Grace and Alice were speedily sufficient to restore Mrs. Maynard. A teaspoonful of brandy administered by the colonel's trembling hand helped matters materially. Then he turned to Armitage.
"Come outside," he said.
Once again in the moonlight the two men faced each other.
"Armitage, can you get a horse?"
"Certainly. What then?"
"Go to the station, get men, if possible, and head this fellow off. He was here again to-night, and it was not Alice he called, but my—but Mrs. Maynard. I saw him; I grappled with him right here at the bay-window where she met him, and he hurled me to grass as though I'd been a child. I want a horse! I want that man to-night. How did he get away from Sibley?"
"Do you mean—do you think it was Jerrold?"
"Good God, yes! Who else could it be? Disguised, of course, and bearded; but the figure, the carriage, were just the same, and he came to this window,—to her window,—and called, and she answered. My God, Armitage, think of it!"