Aunt Jane's agonized scream brought Phibbs running to her side. At a glance she saw that her mistress had fainted, and looking hastily around to discover the cause she observed the boy crawl slowly across the plank, reach the tree, and slide down its trunk to pass out of view behind the high hedge.
"Drat the boy!" growled the old servant, angrily, "he'll be the death of Miss Jane, yet."
CHAPTER XVI.
GOOD RESULTS.
Uncle John could not run so swiftly as the lawyer, but he broke through a gap in the hedge and arrived at a point just beneath the plank at the same time that Silas Watson did.
One glance showed them the boy safely perched on top of the plank, but the girl was bending backward. She threw out her arms in a vain endeavor to save herself, and with a low cry toppled and plunged swiftly toward the ground.
There was little time for the men to consider their actions. Involuntarily they tried to catch Patricia, whose body struck them sharply, felling them to the ground, and then bounded against the hedge and back to the pavement.
When, half dazed, they scrambled to their feet, the girl lay motionless before them, a stream of red blood welling from a deep cut in her forhead, her eyes closed as if in sleep.
A moment more and the boy was kneeling beside her, striving to stay the bleeding with his handkerchief.
"Do something! For God's sake try to do something," he wailed, piteously. "Can't you see she's killed herself to save me?"