“Oh, hush! hush!” exclaimed Bayle sternly. “Mrs Hallam, you know not what you say. Doctor, come on to me, I wish to see you. Dear Mrs Luttrell, let me assist you all I can. Good-bye! God help you in your trouble. Good-bye!”
He bent down and kissed the old lady; and as he pressed her hand she clung to his, and kissed it in return.
“Good-bye, Mrs Hallam,” he said, holding out his hand once more.
She turned from him with a look of disgust and loathing, and he went slowly out, as he had come, with his head bent, along the road, and on to the market-place.
Volume Two—Chapter Fifteen.
A Critical Time.
There was only one bit of business going on in King’s Castor that morning among the mechanics, and that was where two carpenters were busy nailing boards across the gaping windows and broken door of Hallam’s house.
The ivy about the hall window was all scorched, and the frames of that and two windows above were charred, but only the hall, staircase, and one room had been burned before the fire was extinguished. The greater part of the place, though, was a wreck, the mob having wreaked their vengeance upon the furniture when Hallam was snatched from their hands by the law; and for about an hour the self-constituted avengers of the customers at Dixons’ Bank had behaved like Goths.