Winter stared and stopped. He was about to explain events, but Jacob strode away, the puppies streaming behind him.
He lifted his voice and bawled for help before he reached his door. Then Mrs. Bullstone hastened and found him already beside the kitchen fire. He lowered Margery to the ground, bade his mother undress her and went for brandy.
Returning with it he found the sufferer had regained consciousness. She could not speak but her eyes were open. She drank; then Jacob went for blankets and within ten minutes had left the house, hastened to the stables and saddled a horse. He quickly galloped off to Brent for a doctor and Margery's mother.
In time they arrived, to a turmoil of talk and tears from Mrs. Bullstone—a dislocated, agitated upheaval in which Judith Huxam and her daughter alone preserved calm. The physician found Margery bruised and cruelly shaken, but without a broken bone. There was concussion, how severe he could not immediately determine.
He directed them and asked a question of Jacob before leaving.
"How did she get in the water? Not intentionally I hope?"
For the last time that day Bullstone was staggered beyond reason.
"'Intentionally?' Good God, doctor, she's engaged to marry me!" he said. Then happened a strange thing, for in the morning, Margery proved already better after sleep, and sitting beside a convalescent sweetheart, Bullstone was reminded of one he had forgotten.
With deep emotion he came to her and gasped to see how small Margery appeared, sitting up with a pink shawl round her shoulders and her hair down.
Out of his joy and to steady himself, he blamed her—even assuming an angry manner.