‘Aunt Dora was crying,’ said Vivian at last. ‘She can’t think that Isobel is going to die, can she? Oh Ronald!’ he repeated, taking hold of his brother’s arm, and shaking it, as if to force an answer from him, ‘do say something; do say that she isn’t going to die.’
‘Oh, I hope it isn’t as bad as that,’ said Ronald, trying to speak cheerfully. ‘Lots of people get their heads hurt, and come all right afterwards; but, all the same, I wish we had told at the time. She might not have been so bad now.’
In a very few minutes the door opened again, and Aunt Dora came back, accompanied by an elderly gentleman, who glanced sharply at the two boys. Aunt Dora seemed quite herself again, although her voice trembled slightly.
‘This is Dr Robson, Vivian,’ she said, ‘and I want him just to see you for a moment, to make sure that you are all right after your faint turn in the morning; and then I want you both to try and remember exactly what happened on Wednesday, when the branch broke, and Isobel fell.’
The doctor felt Vivian’s pulse, and asked him a few questions. ‘He’s all right,’ he said, nodding briskly to Mrs Osbourne. ‘His nerves have got the better of him with the excitement of the robbery and all the turn-up in the house. Send him out for a good walk on the Heath; it will do his cold no harm, and he will come in looking like a different boy.
‘And now, my lad,’ he went on, turning to Ronald, ‘I want you to tell me exactly what happened last Wednesday, and how far little Miss Isobel fell, and what she looked like when she got up.’
‘I will tell you what I can, sir,’ replied Ronald; ‘but Vivian knows better than I do, for he was with her on the branch, and when she fell, he fell along with her. It took me a few minutes to get round to them, for of course they fell over on to the Heath, and I ran round by the lodge. Isobel was sitting on the branch then, and she said she was not hurt, but her face was so white I thought that she had broken her arm or something, and there was a queer look in her eyes as if she wasn’t seeing anything. I was frightened, and I ran in to see if I couldn’t find Aunt Dora; but she had gone out, and Isobel walked home herself, so I thought it was all right.’
The doctor listened to his story attentively, nodding his head once or twice when Ronald spoke of the curious look he had noticed in his little cousin’s eyes. Then he turned to Vivian.
‘When the branch broke, who was underneath?’ he asked; but Vivian could not answer this question.
‘I think we both fell together,’ he said; ‘only Isobel fell on her back and I fell on my face. I remember that because my hands were skinned, and she said she thought she had bumped the back of her head.’