"She didn't see you," interposed Browne, recalling the policeman's account of Elspeth weeping at his feet for admission.
"No. That would have given her design away. She pretended to weep and knelt down to ask the policeman guarding the door to let her in. Then she slipped a note under the door, and went away without suspicion. The note said that the two rustics on guard under the window would be taken away in half an hour--that I was to drop from the window, and go to the fence. There Kind would be waiting to guide me to a hiding-place. I expect Elspeth got the two watchers to go into the tap-room by promising them drink. When the coast was clear, I opened the window softly and dropped. Kind was at the fence, and grasping my hand hurried me away in the mist to this place. Here, I first attended to Mrs. Kind, and----"
"And saved her life," said the Cheap-jack bursting with gratitude. "He sucked the stuff from her throat, doctor. Then I hid him under the floor, having first shifted the goods. He came out to see that Rachel was getting along all right, and I whistled 'Garryowen' to let him know I was coming with you."
"How did you know that I was coming?" Browne asked Herries.
"Elspeth came here to ask me if I would like to see you," explained the young man. "Of course I did, as I knew that I could trust you. Then she went back, and told Kind, and----"
"Oh, that was what she whispered to you in the tap-room," said the doctor, glancing at the Cheap-jack. "H'm! Well, I suppose you may trust me, Herries. All the same, I told Trent that if I chanced on you I would persuade you to give yourself up and send a wire telling him that you had done so."
"Browne, would you betray me?"
"No, of course I wouldn't," snapped the doctor, savagely. "All the same, this running away will not do you any good."
"Browne," said Herries, much agitated, "if I had stopped, I would have been condemned on the evidence which Trent discovered. That man will never let me have a fair trial. He is dead against me."
"Because he can't see further than his nose," retorted the doctor. "He is sorry for you in a way, but he seems to have made up his mind that you are guilty."