“Hartley never leaves and speaks like that unless there is something wrong,” she said to herself. “If that wretched man has persuaded Leo—she has just gone out—without a word. Oh, no, no! she would not do such a thing as that. How I do picture troubles where there are none!”
She stood watching until her brother disappeared, and then went back into the dining-room, telling herself that it was folly, but her heart refused to be convinced, and set up a low, heavy, ominous throb.
Chapter Two.
Dr North Gets in Hot Water.
“Yah!”
A virtuous mob’s war-cry. The favourite ejaculation of the unwashed scoundrels who are always ready to redress grievances and hunt down their fellow-creatures for the crimes they glory in themselves—when they can commit them safely.
There is always a large floating contingent ready for this duty, and also—to use their own expression—“to have a go at any think;” and upon several occasions they had had “a go” at the lecture-room of St. Sector’s Hospital, Florsbury, the consequence of such “goes” being that the neighbouring glaziers had a large job; but the authorities preferred to content themselves with keeping out the wind and water, and left the exterior unpainted, showing the stone dents, chipped paint, and batterings of the insensate crew of virtuous beings who revel in destruction whenever they have a chance.
The “Yahoos” had their own theory about St. Sector’s, and allowed themselves to smoulder for a time, but every now and then they burst forth into eruption, and then the consequences were not pleasant to behold.