“Excuse me, miss—I do not know your name—you are talking nonsense.”
“Let me explain. Oh! there never was such a wicked girl; I do not mind saying it now. I loaded the gun just to show him that I could shoot a bird on the wing, and—and I forgot all about it; I forgot I had left the gun loaded. Oh, how can I ever forgive myself?”
The doctor asked her a few more questions. He tried to soothe her. He then said if she would stay where she was he would bring her the very first news from the London doctor. The case was not hopeless, he assured her; but there was danger—grave danger—and any shock would bring on hemorrhage, and hemorrhage would be fatal.
The little girl listened to him, and as she listened a new and wonderful strength was given to her. At that instant Evelyn Wynford ceased to be a child. She was never a child any more. The suffering and the shock had been too mighty; they had done for her what perhaps nothing else could ever do—they had awakened her slumbering soul.
How she lived through the remainder of that day she could never tell to any one. No one saw her in the Squire’s sitting-room. No one wanted the room; no one went near it. Audrey was back again at the Castle, comforting her mother and trying to help her. When she spoke of Evelyn, Lady Frances shuddered.
“Don’t mention her,” she said. “She had the impertinence to rush into the room; but she also had the grace to——”
“What, mother?”
“She was really fond of her uncle, Audrey; I always said so. She fainted—poor, miserable girl—when she saw the state he was in.”
But Lady Frances did not know of Evelyn’s confession to the young doctor; nor did Dr. Watson tell any one.
It was late and the day had passed into night when the doctor came in and sat down by Evelyn’s side.