“Then perhaps he is only hurt; I wonder if there is anything that we could do.”
“We might go up to the Hall and get help,” Audry suggested.
“Yes,” said Aline, doubtfully, as the thought crossed her mind that he might be the poor stranger whom the country-side was hunting like a beast of prey and although she could not explain her feelings she felt too much pity to do anything that might help the hunters and therefore it would not be wise to go to the Hall. It was partly the natural gentleness of her nature and partly her instinctive abhorrence of the vindictive way in which Mistress Mowbray had spoken on the previous night.
Then a shudder passed through her as she looked at the foaming torrent. Any help that could be given must be through that. Aline was only a child; but until she came to Holwick Hall she had lived entirely with older people and realised as children rarely do the full horror of death. It was so easy to stay where she was, she was not even absolutely certain that the stranger was in any real danger. It was not her concern. But Aline from long association with her brave father had a measure of masculine physical courage that will even court danger and that overcame her natural girlish timidity, and along with that she had in unusual degree the true feminine courage that can suffer in silence looking for no approval, no victory and no reward, the stuff of which martyrs are made. “He is obviously unfortunate,” she said to herself,—“Oh, if I could only help him, what does it matter about me, and yet how beautiful the day is, the rainbows, the clear air, the flowers and dear Audry; must I risk them all?”
She was not sure, however, what line her cousin might take and therefore did not like to express her thoughts aloud. On the other hand she could do nothing without Audry, but she thought it best to keep her own counsel and do as much as she could before Audry could possibly hinder her. So she only said;—“But if we went for help to the Hall it might be too late before any one came, if he is injured and still alive.”
At this moment both of them distinctly saw the figure move, and Aline at once said, “Oh, we must help him at once. I am sure we should not be in time if we went up to the Hall. We might find no one who could come and there might be all manner of delays.”
“But whatever can you do, Aline, he is on the other side?”
“I shall try and swim across,” she said, after thinking a moment.
“What, in all this flood! That is impossible.”
“I think I could manage it, if I went a little lower down the river where the torrent is not quite so bad.”