“What is it? Speak out, man,” cried Dick impatiently.
“Let me teake t’ little leady aweay first, mester.”
Dick staggered.
“They haven’t—caught him, Barnabas?”
“Ah’m afreaid so.”
Low as he spoke, Freda caught the words. Overcome with self-reproach for having momentarily forgotten her father’s danger, with misery at his unhappy plight, she tottered across the room towards the farmer, who, lifting her up in his arms as if she had been a child, carried her straight out of the room, to the front door of the farm-house.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The covered cart, in which the police had come, had now disappeared. Beside Barnabas Ugthorpe’s cart was a gig, with John Thurley standing at the horse’s head.
“This way,” said Thurley in a peremptory tone, as Barnabas was carrying the girl to his own cart, “I’m going back to the Abbey and can take Miss Mulgrave with me.”
Freda shuddered. The farmer said a soothing word in her ear, and without heeding Mr. Thurley’s directions, placed her on the seat on which she had come.