Caught in a Trap

by John C. Hutcheson

The doctor however did not waste any time in vain regrets or in exclamations of wonder: he was a medical man, and his first care was to examine the motionless form of the girl, to see how far she was hurt. She had only fainted, he shortly perceived, and he set to work at once to revive her.

Thanks to a pocket flask of brandy, which he had fortunately brought with him, he soon contrived to put a little life into the girl; and he was able after a time to raise her up, when she opened her eyes and gave a groan of pain. She apparently did not know where she was or recognise the doctor; she only moaned, “Take me home! Take me home!”

One of her arms broken, and a cut on her head; but, otherwise, she had most providentially escaped. She had probably fainted at the time she shrieked out before falling backwards over the cliff. Being thus supine, she could not struggle; so instead of receiving fatal injuries as a man might have done, who attempted to resist his fall she was unhurt, with the exception of a few trifling injuries, which time would soon repair. But she was very much shaken, and the doctor did not know what to do with her, as she could hardly walk, and he was not strong enough to carry her, as he might have done in his earlier days.

The place was quite deserted. The doctor could not see a soul, and much as he disliked Frenchmen, he would have been glad to come across then the most “miserable foreign vagabond” who might have been sent on his way; but no one came, and as it was getting darker and darker, and night coming on, the doctor had to pull his wits together.

He was a man of action: to wager with possible improbabilities his creed, so he did not hesitate long. While the girl was sobbing and moaning to herself, and crying out in half-incoherent language “Allynne! Allynne!” he lifted her up bodily, and tried to get her home to her own place in the Rue Montmartre.

But the night was dark, as has been before observed, and the doctor missed the landmarks, which he had so carefully jotted down on the tablets of his memory. He was in the right direction, but when he got to the foot of the street of which he was in search, he lost altogether his carte du pays. Just then he saw a fiacre, and at the same time he arrived at a sudden determination; what it was, will be presently shown.

The doctor bethought him that he had come over to Havre especially to try and get Susan home, and separate her from Markworth. Why on earth should he take her back now to the place where she would still be with him? Here she was unconscious, and he was her proper guardian appointed by her father. He would—“Yes, I will, I’ll be damned if I don’t!” he said, to himself; “take her back to England on my own account, without asking anybody’s leave or license!” And the doctor carried his determination into effect between that night and the next day.

The fiacre arriving opportunely, the doctor hailed it; and lifting Susan in, gave the driver the card of his hotel, “The Queen of Savoy,” which he had kept so carefully in his waistcoat pocket for such an emergency as losing his way: he and his charge—now more recovered—were presently set down at that famous hostelry, where the doctor had Susan at once put to bed, guarding her all the while with jealous watchfulness: he was afraid Markworth might step in at the last moment to claim her, and that his trouble would be thrown away.

In the morning—Susan being still nearly unconscious—he had her carried on board the early packet for England; and the same evening the doctor, to his intense satisfaction, had her on English ground.

At Southampton, Susan was unfortunately taken very ill; and Doctor Jolly could not carry out his intention of removing her at once to his own house as he had intended.