“And you—you wretch—you have helped her,” cried Salis, seizing the girl by the arm.
“I didn’t. It isn’t true. I’ve done everything to keep ’em apart; but they’ve cheated and deceived me,” cried Dally. “She’s gone up to London to meet him—and—and they’ve gone there.”
She tore an envelope from her pocket, and Salis snatched it from her hand to read the address in Craven Street.
“Hartley,” whispered Mary, clinging to him now, “is it true?”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely, “it must be true. Hush! I must leave you now. Mr Delton, will you stay in the house, and watch over my sister and my friend? I must go away at once.”
“There’s no train till to-morrow morning at eight,” sobbed Dally passionately; and she stamped her feet like an angry child as her hysterical fit began to return.
“That will do!” said the old doctor sternly, as he grasped the girl’s wrist once more, and she looked up at him in a startled way, and then quailed and subsided into a fit of sobbing.
“Anything I can do, Mr Salis, you may depend on being done.”
Salis nodded; he could not speak for a moment, but gazed full in his sister’s eyes.
“Did you suspect this?” he whispered.