"You can drown him if you bring the doctor through by the last train!" said Chatterton, ringing the bell. "The horse will be ready inside ten minutes; and I'm greatly obliged to you."
The time had not elapsed when Rae walked quietly toward the mettlesome beast, which, resenting the change from its warm stable into the stinging sleet, laid its ears back, and when Chatterton approached it bared its teeth.
"Stand clear of his head!" cautioned Rae, swinging himself to the saddle; and the horse, rearing half upright, sent the gravel flying. "No. Leave the gate shut! I'm going the nearest way."
"I shall not forget this kindness," called Chatterton. "Feel I ought to stop you, but dare not do it. Take care of yourself—and God bless you!"
"I hope He will prosper my journey," the younger man answered gravely.
There was a further scattering of gravel, a pounding of hoofs across a strip of lawn, and a crash of brittle branches as horse and rider smashed through a tall hedge into the sleet which whirled across the meadow beyond it.
Chatterton, shaking the white flakes from him, returned to his wife.
"I suppose you saw what has happened," he said. "There's another of them in the running now, and this one has mettle in him if he is a clergyman. He's going through Langside moss to-night, though I gave him the plainest hint I could that in respect to Lilian his chance is of the smallest. Maxwell, it seems, took his dismissal gracefully; but what Rae has done to-night will count heavily on his side. Why must that idiot Hilton go out and get himself cut off by niggers in Africa?"
Thanks to Rae's daring ride, a skilful doctor arrived at the junction by the last train, and remained at The Larches all the next day. He also made a number of other visits before he stated that his patient was making rapid progress on the way to recovery.
"You had, however, better take her south, say Egypt or the Canaries, to escape our genial spring," he said. "Not necessary, but distinctly advisable. Miss Chatterton might sail almost at any time."