Presently James returned.
“He is coming to himself,” he said. “Dickenson is going to give him some strong opiate; then he hopes that he will sleep before he knows what has happened. No one must go to him or try to rouse him now.”
“I cannot understand, now, how it happened,” said Mrs Crichton. “Where is Hugh?”
Where was Hugh? His brother’s absence struck James for the first time as extraordinary.
“Mother,” he said, “you had better let me take you into the house, and I will ask Dickenson if he knows where Hugh has gone to. Get up, Freddie, my dear girl, take care of mother. Yes, that’s right,” as Frederica, with unexpected self-command, stood up, choked back her sobs, and took her aunt by the hand. Perhaps it had hardly come yet to the time for overwhelming grief, for Mrs Crichton rose and walked into the house, unable to realise the truth of what still seemed like a frightful dream.
“What became of my brother?” he said to Wood.
“Indeed, sir, I can’t remember. I saw nothing but Mr Arthur with the dear young lady in his arms; but Mr Crichton all the time was like one demented, and would have been drowned too if Mr Arthur had not dragged him out, and I held him back from jumping into the water before the gates were fairly open. O Lord! sir, there’s the Rector coming. This news will kill the poor old gentleman, surely.”
But the ill news had flown faster than they thought for, and the office of comforter had been familiar for too many years to Mr Harcourt for him to shrink from it now; and, instead of the merry dinner-party to which he and his wife had been summoned, he had left her to realise that she had bidden little Mysie farewell for ever only a few hours before.
“Her golden wedding—her golden wedding!” he said; but with what force of allusion James hardly knew. He took the Rector, however, to his mother; and when he came out again, with a vague idea of watching for Hugh, Wood had gone to look after his daughter; and Mr Dickenson came out, reporting that Arthur, under the influence of the opiate, had fallen asleep, without rousing to the consciousness of what had happened.
“So best,” said James, with a heavy sigh; “but, Mr Dickenson, what can have become of Hugh?”