“There is one two miles away, sir——” and while she was giving explicit directions, the little fair-haired girl crept up timidly with the letter she had picked up from the floor.
“The letter, sir, that dropped from the lady’s jacket.”
“Don’t pester the gentleman, Millie,” said her mother, reprovingly, but Cecil patted the little sunny head kindly, and took the letter from her hand with a careless glance at the superscription.
He gave a start of surprise, and his heart leaped stranglingly into his throat.
The letter was addressed to himself in the beautiful, beloved, familiar writing of his lost Violet!
He comprehended that Amber had lied to him and kept back this letter, the mere touch of which made his blood whirl in dizzy waves through his throbbing heart.
But there was no time to read it now. Thrusting it against his heart, he dashed out of the door, and hurried in quest of the doctor.
Within half a mile he encountered the person he was seeking, riding rapidly toward him on horseback, followed by the gardener from Golden Willows.
“Doctor Perry, I was just going in quest of you. Miss Laurens has been thrown from her phaeton half a mile back from here, and seriously injured, I fear,” cried Cecil.
But the old physician answered, brusquely: