“A regular smash if they don’t look out. Woa, Tom! Steady, my lad!” cried the doctor, opening the French window and stepping out on to the lawn.
“Doctor, for pity’s sake,” sobbed Mrs Berens, in anguished tones.
The patient’s voice was so pitiful that the doctor could not resist the appeal, and though called as it were on both sides, he stepped rapidly back into the little drawing-room in time to catch the fainting widow in his arms.
Unfortunately for poor Mrs Berens, who had for long felt touched by the young doctor, a lady in distress, mental or bodily, or both, was always a patient to Dr North, and he only retained her in his arms just long enough to lower her down in a corner of a soft couch, before rushing out of the window and through the gate, where his tied-up horse was snorting and kicking.
The poor brute had cause, for the rapid running of wheels and beat of hoofs were produced by Hartley Salis’s phaeton and the new mare, which came down the road at a frantic gallop, with Mary clinging to the side of the vehicle, pale with dread, and Leo, apparently quite retaining her nerve, seated perfectly upright in her place, but unable to control the mare, one rein having given way at the buckle hole, and a pull at the other being so much madness.
They had come along for quite a mile at a headlong pace, till nearing Mrs Berens’ house, Leo caught sight of the doctor’s cob, which pricked up its ears and began to rear and plunge.
To have kept on as they were meant a collision, and there was nothing left now for the driver to do but draw gently upon the sound rein.
The pull given was vain, and a sharp one followed, just in time to make the half-bred mare swerve and avoid the doctor’s cob; but the consequence was that the fore wheel of the phaeton caught a post on the other side of the road. There was a crashing sound, a wild scream, and the cause of the accident went off at a more furious pace than ever, with the shafts dangling and flying about her legs.
“Hurt? No, not much,” cried the doctor, half lifting Leo from the grass at the side of the road; and hurrying to where Mary lay staring wildly, entangled among the fragments of the chaise.
“My poor child!” he cried. “Oh, this is bad work. Try and—Here! Miss Leo—Mrs Berens. Water—brandy—for Heaven’s sake, quick!”