“And now come to yonder rock and sit down. I want to know all that has happened to you since you left the Coolidges; there has been some mystery connected with it which I could never understand,” Adrian said, leading her to a sheltered seat, and sitting down beside her.
And Brownie, feeling that she was now no longer alone, but that instead she had a host in him to battle for her, poured forth all the story of her wrongs about the jewels, and the abuse and insult which she had received from Isabel and her mother.
CHAPTER XXIV
RETROSPECTIVE
When Brownie, in her despair and desolation, bade farewell to Wilbur and drove away from the Coolidge mansion, it was her intention to go directly to the “Washington,” and there await, for a few days at least, whatever destiny might send her.
But this plan was overruled in a way she had not thought of.
The man who drove the cab was more than half intoxicated, and upon turning a corner, he ran into a heavily loaded team. More by luck than by any good wit, he turned quickly aside, and the cab was almost miraculously disengaged from the other vehicle; but the animals had now become unmanageable from excessive fright. They gave a sudden leap into the air, then bounded forward in a mad and furious race.
The cabby was thrown from his seat into the gutter, and in turning another corner, the carriage was upset. Now, wholly beside themselves, the horses kicked themselves free from the débris, and plunged out of sight, leaving poor Brownie in a state of insensibility, buried beneath the ruins.
The accident had happened in a quiet, aristocratic street of the city; consequently there were few to witness it, and the young girl escaped the curious gaze of the crowd which always gathers about any such event in the more frequented portions.
The massive door of a grand house swung open, and an old lady of over eighty, very peculiar in appearance—for she was bent nearly double, and walked with a cane—appeared, attended by the gray-haired butler of the house.
“Go and bring her in instantly, James,” she was saying, when another woman came forward and seemed to protest against the order in a very emphatic manner.