“Yes—yes,” said Dinah, in a whisper, as with trembling hands she hurriedly placed the coffee before the messenger. “Martha will get that ready, father. I must come too.”
“No, no, my child!—well, yes, you may be of use. Be quick, then. In a minute we must be off.” Then, as Dinah ran up to her room, he went to the study and returned hastily, placing something in his breast.
“Old soldiers know a little about surgery, Mr Robson,” he said. “It will be a couple of hours before the doctor can get to the mine.”
“Three, sir.”
“Perhaps, and I may be of use.”
“I thought you would come, sir,” said Robson, as he hurriedly appeased his hunger. “There’s something wrong, too, at the mine, so one of the principal men says, but I didn’t stop to hear what it was, for I was coming on here.”
“Curse the mine!” roared the Major; “let’s think of poor Mr Reed. Ah, that’s right, my dear,” he cried sharply, as Dinah came into the room, looking very white, but firm and determined. “Ready, Mr Robson?”
“Quite, sir,” said the messenger, starting up.
“Tell Martha, my dear?”
Dinah nodded. She could not speak, and the next minute they were down by the river, and then ascended the mountain path, walking quickly along the narrow shelf, with thrill after thrill passing through the girl, as she went by the spot where Clive had struck the paper she had offered him from her hand; and this was supplemented by a suffocating feeling of despair as they reached the cool, dark, shady cutting, tunnelled out in the precipitous cliff. Here she glanced wildly at the spot where she had flown, as she believed, to her lover’s arms, and rested in them for a moment, murmuring her delight that he had come.