"What is all this, Clarke? is it true?" asked Katharine, as she hurriedly untied her bonnet and flung it down, and threw off her pelisse of velvet and fur.
"Yes, ma'am, it's all true. But O, why did you not come sooner? James has been more than an hour gone to fetch you."
"I was out--they had to find me," she said, in the same hurried tone. "What do they say it is? Let me see the doctor. Let me go up stairs."
"Yes, ma'am, directly," said Mrs. Clarke, down whose rosy and unrefined cheeks tears were beginning to flow. "But first you must see the gentleman that brought him home; he knows all about it; he breakfasted with master this morning. If you please, sir,--Lord ha' mercy, if he hasn't been left out in the hall!"
Katharine stepped hastily towards the door, as Mrs. Clarke, with many voluble apologies, brought Mr. Stallbrass in. She thanked him briefly, and entreated him to tell her all that had happened. She listened to his story with painful eagerness, turning paler and paler as he went on; and when she had heard it all, she thanked him again.
"And now I must go to him," she said, and held out her hand to the stranger.
"I will wait a little longer, if you will allow me, for the chance of a more favourable report," he said.
"Do so," she returned. "My carriage is at your disposal. Tell them to come back here, Clarke, when they have taken this gentleman home." Then she again bade him farewell and left him.
He walked up and down the room for half an hour, at the end of which time the housekeeper came downstairs again;--this time crying unrestrainedly.
"There's not a bit of hope, sir; but they think he will live for some hours; and they hope he will get his senses back, and speak to his daughter, or at least look at her before he dies."