“Oh! my child, my child, thank God you’re well. I was a’most ready to drop in a swound when I came into your room, just now, everything knocked topsy-turvey, and a door cut in the wall, and all in a litter, I couldn’t know where I was, and some one a bleedin’ all across the floor, and one of the big, green-handled knives on the floor—Lord a’ mercy on us—with the blade bent and blood about it. I never was so frightened. I thought my senses was a leavin’ me, and I couldn’t tell what I might see next, and I ready to drop down on the floor wi’ fright. My darling child—my precious—Lord love it, and here it was, barefooted, and but half clad, and—come in ye must, dear, ’tis enough to kill ye.”
“I can scarcely remember anything, Dulcibella, only one thing—oh! I’m so terrified.”
“Come in, darling, you’ll lose your life if you stay here as you are, and what was it, dear, and who did you see?”
“A woman—that dreadful blind woman, who came in at the new door; I never saw her before.”
“Well, dear! Oh, Miss Alice, darling, I couldn’t a’ believed, and thank God you’re safe after all; that’s she I heard a screechin’ as strong as a dozen—and frightful words, as well as I could hear, to come from any woman’s lips. Lord help us.”
“Where is she now?”
“Somewhere in the front of the house, darlin’, screechin’ and laughin’ I thought, but heaven only knows.”
“She’s mad, Mrs. Tarnley says, and Mr. Fairfield said so too. Master Charles is come—my darling Ry. Oh! Dulcibella, how grateful I should be. What could I have done if he hadn’t?”
So Dulcibella persuaded her to come into the yard, and so, through the scullery door, at which Mildred stood, having secured all other access to the kitchen. So in she came, awfully frightened to find herself again in the house, but was not her husband there, and help at hand, and the doors secured?