Pamela wanted to get the business over as quickly as possible. The boy was a great anxiety. Also she felt as though her brain were entirely confused, and she wanted to set it in order again. She passed through the farm-gate--the dog began to bark furiously--then she called. On the other side of the stack-yard she saw a man hurrying, it was Ensor, the farmer; then Mrs. Ensor appeared, and immediately she found herself the centre of a small crowd, and heard herself saying that they ought to send for a doctor at once because the foot was very bad.
"It mayn't be broken, but it's all wrong," she said.
Ensor did not talk, he was a silent man; everybody else did, and Pamela had to urge quiet and warm milk at once.
"I had nothing to give him and he was so thirsty, poor mite."
"You look bad enough yourself, Missie. Down the Beak! Whoever heard tell the like. Naughty boy----"
"Don't scold him, Mrs. Ensor, he really has been through an awful lot," protested Pamela. "No, I won't stay a moment. I must get back as soon as possible, or my mother will be anxious. If you like I'll tell Major Fraser at Mainsail Cottage, probably he's in now."
But Mrs. Ensor would not have that--she had, as she told her husband, "a better notion of what was becoming", so the eldest boy was despatched--running--with a good deal of elbow action--and Pamela took her leave then, and went soberly surrounded by an atmosphere of intense loving gratitude. It was hardly spoken--it was in the air.
She felt as though she had small right to it, because, had it not been for the stranger, she must have been still on the face of that awful cliff--with dusk coming on, and the fog so chill. She shivered an instant, but at the same time almost her heart gave a little bound of excitement.
She had met the other girl; her own double! And who was she? What was her story? Where had she come from?
"I'll ask her," thought Pam, "she will be waiting in the cart-shed."