For one second I leaned against the wall unable to move; then, trembling so that I could scarcely find the top stair, I stepped forward to go down. But on the second stair my foot suddenly slipped, and, if I had not been going very slowly because of my agitation, I must have fallen. On the next stair I slipped again; on the next to that, putting out my foot very cautiously, I found a string fastened across.
With a sudden suspicion, I sat down without advancing farther, and slid my hand along the stair. It was slippery; so were the others. The turret staircase was dark even by day; if I had been running downstairs at my usual pace, nothing could have saved me. It was a trap set by Sarah, if not for getting rid of me altogether, at least for seriously injuring me. She was greasing the stairs one by one when I had heard her; in her alarm at my sudden appearance she had sprung up, her foot had slipped on the greasy plate below which she had been using, and she had fallen herself a victim to the trap she had laid for me. And, as the horrible truth broke upon me, I heard another groan and a murmur I could not distinguish.
Sick at heart, and for the moment almost as helpless as she, I crawled down the stairs, wondering and fearing what spectacle would meet my eyes at the bottom.
CHAPTER XXIII.
All the stairs below where Sarah had slipped were safe and in their usual state. At the bottom, an almost senseless heap, lay Sarah, with one arm twisted under her and her head in a pool of blood. She was moaning, with closed eyes, and did not know me even when her eyes opened and she stared round her.
The noise of her fall had by this time brought out Jane from the distant nursery; and she ran for the cook, who was an older and more experienced woman, and who indeed proved useful in this emergency. It was past midnight; but, late as it was, I was obliged to send Jane into the village for Sam, to tell him to take one of the horses and ride as fast as he could to Beaconsburgh for the Doctor. Meanwhile the cook declared her belief that one of Sarah’s arms was broken, for she fainted when it was touched; and then, having discovered that the blood was flowing from a great gash at the back of her head, she bound it up as well as she could to stop the bleeding. Then I ran downstairs for some brandy, which we put to her lips from time to time, but in vain tried to make her swallow. And then we sat in the cold, in the dim light of a candle, both of us crouched on the floor, the cook supporting the wounded woman against her knee, I a little way behind, lest she should recover full consciousness and know me.
It was a ghastly thing to be sitting there with that horrid stain on the floor within a few feet, listening to the feeble moans of the wretched woman whom we hardly expected to live until help came, holding our breath when for a few moments the moaning ceased, I thinking of the awful retribution her malice had brought down upon her, not daring to speak to tell her I forgave her, lest my voice should have some terrible effect upon her wandering mind. And so we sat shivering not with cold alone, until the front-door bell sounded through the silent house, and Jane, who had not dared to come upstairs again since she went to send off Sam, opened the door, and we heard the Doctor’s heavy tread on the stairs.
It was Doctor Lowe. He called first for more light. Jane brought a lamp, and he signed to her to go away. After asking me whether I was hysterical, and hearing me answer “No,” he told me to hold the lamp while he made his examination. He said afterwards that I had strong nerves; but nothing but fear of him kept me steady at my post, as, with averted head, I heard the sharp little cries the wounded woman gave two or three times. The cook had been right; the arm that lay under Sarah was broken; the Doctor could not tell yet whether her spine was not injured too. He cut off her long black hair and strapped up her head, which had received a gash which might affect the brain, he said; and he set and bandaged the broken arm. Then we brought a mattress, and very carefully lifted her on to it, carried her to her room, and put her on the bed.
“Who is going to sit up with her?” asked he.
“I will,” said I, but added doubtfully, “if—”