"You must go home, my dear—at once—and take the child with you. Pete is outside to help you, and my buggy is just at the foot of the path. I can't have you here."
"Can't I be of some use if I stay?" she pleaded.
"No; you'd only hinder. You are much too sympathetic. Don't delay; the minutes may count for lives," and the physician began to unbuckle the straps of the canvas-covered case he had brought with him.
Ardea wrapped the child hastily and gave him to Pete to carry, following as quickly as she could down the path made possible by the coachman's choppings. Happily, the doctor's horse was freshly shod, and the quarter-mile to the manor-house was measured in safety. Ardea left little Tom with Mammy Juliet at her cabin in the old quarters, and went up to the great house to wait anxiously for news. It was drawing on to the early dusk of the cloudy evening when she saw from the window of the music-room the muffled figure of Pete opening the pasture gate for the doctor to drive through. Instantly she flew to the door and out on the steps.
"Go in, child; go in," was the fatherly command. "I've got to stop to take Morelock in. I promised to carry him to the station."
"But Nancy?" she questioned anxiously.
"She will live," said the doctor briefly. And then he added with a frown: "But the child may not—which would doubtless be the best thing possible for all concerned. I'm afraid the woman is incorrigible." Then the professional part of him came to its own again: "You'll have to send somebody up there to relieve Eliza. Care is all that is needed now, but it mustn't be stinted."
There were tears standing in the slate-blue eyes of the listener, but Doctor Williams did not see them. If he had, he would not have understood; neither would he have plumbed the depths of misery in that whispered saying of Ardea's as she turned and fled to her room: "O Tom! how could you! how could you!"