“You, miss—here?” he panted breathlessly. “Old Missus Milt said as the maddus folk was taking the doctor away.”
“What?” cried Mary; and a mist floated before her eyes.
“The maddus folk, miss; and they’ve got a carriage round the front.”
With a strength that was almost superhuman, Mary recovered herself, and grasping the situation, she whispered to North:
“Is this true?”
“Listen,” he said.
Mary clung to him tightly as the sounds of the doors being forced bore unanswerable witness to the words; and then, as if to shield him from the threatened danger, she thrust him from her and followed across the surgery.
“No, no!” she panted. “Quick, before it is too late.”
“Go?” he said, in answer to her frenzied appeal.
“Yes, yes; quick—quick! The garden—the meadows.”