“Loose me, father,” cried the young man. “I will not bear this. Loose me, I tell you.”
Father and son had forgotten themselves, and in those brief moments of their struggle a strange blindness had come over them. They swayed to and fro, a little table covered with china was overset with a crash, and, at last, getting one hand free, Cyril clenched his fist and struck out fiercely, just as a wild and piercing scream rang through the room.
Part 1, Chapter XXV.
Where Cyril Went.
Mrs Mallow’s cry of horror as, after struggling for the first time for many years into an upright posture, she fell back, fainting, had the effect of bringing father and son back to their senses. Another second and Cyril’s clenched hand would have struck down the author of his birth; but at that cry his arm fell to his side, and he stood there trembling with excitement as the Rector quitted his hold, and flung himself upon his knees by the couch.
He rose again on the instant to obtain water and the pungent salts which were close at hand, striving with all the skill born of so many years’ attendance in a sick room to restore the stricken woman to her senses.
Frank had already left the house, but the cry brought Julia and Cynthia into the room.
“Oh, mamma, mamma!” wailed Julia, and she too busied herself in trying to revive the stricken woman.