"Hush, my dear," said Mrs. Brookes, as she made an almost inarticulate attempt to speak. "Do not try to say anything yet. Lie quite still, until you are better."
Mrs. Carruthers closed her eyes again and kept silent. When, after an interval, she began to look more life-like, the old woman said, softly:
"You must not give way again like this, for George's sake. I don't care about his wearing the coat. I know it looks bad, but it is a mistake, I am quite sure. Don't I know the boy as well as you do, and maybe better, and don't I know his tender heart, with all his wildness, and that he never shed a fellow-creature's blood in anger, or for any other reason. But it's plain he is suspected--not he, for they don't know him, thank God, but the man that wore the coat, and we must warn him, and keep it from master. Master would go mad, I think, if anything like suspicion or disgrace came of Master George, more than the disgrace he thinks the poor boy's goings on already. You must keep steady and composed, my dear, and you must write to him. Are you listening to me? Do you understand me?" asked the old woman, anxiously, for Mrs. Carruthers's eyes were wild and wandering, and her hand twitched convulsively in her grasp.
"Yes, yes," she murmured, "but I tell you, Ellen, he wore the coat--my boy wore the coat."
"And I tell you, I don't care whether he wore the coat or not," repeated Mrs. Brookes, emphatically. "He can explain that, no doubt of it; but he must be kept out of trouble, and you must be kept out of trouble, and the only way to do that, is to let him know what brought the strange gentleman to Poynings, and what he and master found out. Remember, he never did this thing, but, my dear, he has been in bad hands lately, you know that; for haven't you suffered in getting him out of them, and I don't say but that he may be mixed up with them that did. I'm afraid there can't be any doubt of that, and he must be warned. Try and think of what he told you about himself, not only just now, but when he came here before, and you will see some light, I am sure."
But Mrs. Carruthers could not think of anything, could not remember anything, could see no light. A deadly horrible conviction had seized upon her, iron fingers clutched her heart, a faint sickening terror held her captive, in body and spirit; and as the old woman gazed at her, and found her incapable of answering, the fear that her mistress was dying then and there before her eyes took possession of her. She folded up the newspaper which had fallen from Mrs. Carruthers's hand upon the bed, replaced it in her pocket, and rang the bell for Dixon.
"My mistress is very ill," she said, when Dixon entered the room. "You had better go and find master, and send him here. Tell him to send Dr. Munns at once."
Dixon gave a frightened, sympathizing glance at the figure on the bed, over which the old woman was bending with such kindly solicitude, and then departed on her errand. She found Mr. Carruthers still in the breakfast-room. He was seated at the table, and held in his hand a newspaper, from which he had evidently been reading, when Dixon knocked at the door; for he was holding it slightly aside, and poising his gold eye-glass in the other hand, when the woman entered. Mr. Carruthers was unaccustomed to being disturbed, and he did not like it, so that it was in a tone of some impatience that he said:
"Well, Dixon, what do you want?"
"If you please, sir," replied Dixon hesitatingly, "my mistress is not well."