Dinah listened with her head held forward, lips white and trembling, and her nostrils dilated, hearing her father’s words, and all the time picturing, in imagination, a desperate encounter between two brothers on the dark hillside. Then the one misjudging, bitter, and mad about her, struck down, to lie through the night half dead, with upbraidings against her upon his lips.
It was like a flash: she saw the whole scene while the young clerk went on in answer to the Major.
“Just off the path, sir.”
“And what have you done?”
“Had him carried directly to my rooms at the office, sir.”
“Where his brother is seeing to him?”
“No, sir; Mr Jessop Reed has gone off in haste to London on business. Left a letter for Mr Sturgess. He’s ill too, sir. Half delirious with his bad shoulder, which has broken out again.”
“Tut—tut—tut!” ejaculated the Major. “Well? You did something more?”
“Yes, sir, sent off directly to Blinkdale for the doctor, bathed and bound up Mr Reed’s head, and then came on to you.”
“Good!” cried the Major sharply, clapping the young man on the shoulder, and drawing him into the room. “Sit down and swallow a cup of coffee, my lad. You’ve had no breakfast. Dinah, my child, be a woman. We’ll go over at once. No. You and Martha make a bed for him in my study. I’ll have him carried here. He cannot stay at that noisy mine.”