She looked at Frances with warm admiration in her eyes.
“You’re a brick,” she said. “And we’ll none of us forget it. You might run and tell Dolly, Lucy. Now sit down, Miss Thorold, and I’ll get you a glass of milk.”
She bustled round the old raftered kitchen, and Frances, sitting in the horsehair arm-chair, tried to forget that awful night when she had awaked as from a nightmare to find herself lying before the great fireplace—a prisoner.
“Where are your mother and Maggie?” she asked, when Nell brought her the milk.
“Mother is in the study with the old man,” said Nell. “Maggie is out somewhere. She and Elsie were getting hay down from the loft a few minutes ago. The work has got to go on, you know, whoever lives or dies.” She checked a sob upon the words.
Frances leaned forward and held her hand. “Tell me about little Ruth!” she said.
“Oh, there isn’t much to tell. She went to look for you the night you left. You had a fright, didn’t you? So did we. There was a frightful row after you were gone, and we all of us forgot to wonder where she was till the morning. Then Oliver found her—found her—” Nell choked and recovered herself. “It was up by the Stones. She’d been there heaps of times before and never come to any harm. But this time she must have gone right up on to the Rocking Stone and overbalanced. She was lying under it, and she’d been there for twelve hours or more, poor little darling. She was unconscious when Oliver found her, but she hadn’t been all the time. She keeps on talking about it, about being a prisoner under that stone and begging God to set her free so that she can go to you. She has got a rooted idea that you are in trouble. You’re not, are you? Everything’s all right with you?” She looked down at Frances piteously, through tears.
“Don’t you bother your head about me, my dear!” said Frances. “My affairs don’t count now.” She paused a moment, then, with some hesitation: “Will you tell me why there was such a disturbance after I went?” she asked.
“Oh, that!” said Nell, and also hesitated. “That’s one of the things we’re not supposed to talk about,” she said, after a moment. “You don’t mind, Miss Thorold? You’ll try to understand?”
“My dear, don’t you trouble!” said Frances very kindly. “I shall always try to understand.”