“No,” said Mary sharply. “Telegraph at once to Mr Delton. Tell him his friend North is in urgent need of his help. He believes in North, and looks upon him almost as a son. His advice will be worth that of a dozen Lowcaster physicians.”
“Mary, you’re a pearl among women,” cried Salis.
“Don’t stop to speak,” she cried, with an energy that startled him. “Your friend’s life—his reason—is in peril. Go!”
“My friend; the man that poor broken-spirited creature loves,” muttered Salis, as he hurried away, and was soon after urging his hired pony to a gallop.
“Oh, what moles we men are!” he said, as the hedges and trees flew by him. “But who could have suspected her of caring for him? Lying crushed and broken there, and no one suspecting the agonies she must have suffered.”
Realising by slow degrees the depth of his sister’s love for North, and the life she must have led, Salis urged the pony on to reach King’s Hampton at last, and hurry to the post-office, to despatch his telegram beseeching the old doctor to send a reply; and for this he determined to sit down and wait, but only to pace the coffee-room of the nearest hotel, with his mind a chaos of bewildering ideas, as he wondered what was to be the end of this new trouble which had come upon his house.