But Maud paid no attention to her. With a movement incredibly swift she reached the door and threw it open.
Then indeed Mrs. Wright heard sounds, muffled but undeniable, of some commotion in the stable-yard. "I expect they've just got home, dear," she said. "And very wet they'll be. Hadn't you better tell Sarah to get a nice hot brew of tea ready for 'em? Little Sir Brian will be sure to want his tea."
But the rush of Maud's feet along the oaken passage was her only answer. The girl went like the wind, urged by the most awful fear she had ever known.
The front door was open. Bunny was on the step. But she brushed past him without so much as seeing him, tearing forth bare-headed, ashen-faced, into the rain.
For there in the murky twilight, terrible as a lion newly roused, stood Jake, gripping by the collar a struggling, writhing figure, the while he administered to it as sound a horse-whipping as his great strength could accomplish. His right arm moved slowly, with a deliberate regularity unspeakably horrible to behold. She had a glimpse--only a glimpse--of his face, and the savage cruelty of it was such that it seemed no longer human. Of his victim she saw very little, but of his identity not the smallest doubt existed in her mind; and as the sound of those awful blows reached her, the last shred of her endurance was torn away. She shrieked and shrieked again as she ran.
Those shrieks reached Jake as the cry of its mate in distress might reach an animal intent upon its prey. He flung the prey from him on the instant and wheeled. He met her a full ten yards from the spot, just as her feet slipped on the wet stones of the yard. He caught her--she almost fell against him--and held her hard in his arms.
She was sobbing terribly, utterly unstrung, hysterical. She struggled for speech, but the wild sounds that left her lips were wholly unintelligible. She struggled to free herself, but her strength was gone. In the end, her knees suddenly gave way under her. She collapsed with a gasping cry. And Jake, stooping, raised her, and bore her in senseless out of the drenching rain.
CHAPTER XI
THE REASON
"You've only yourself to thank," said Capper. He tugged irritably at his pointed yellow beard. His eyes were moody under brows that frowned. "You might have known what to expect if you had an ounce of sense."