She was strong almost as a wild animal, wrestling with the doctor to get from him. He made a motion to Austin to keep the door, and there ensued a sharp struggle. Dr. Bevary got her into an arm-chair at last, and stood before her, holding her hands, at first in silence. Then he spoke calmly, soothingly, as he would to a child.
'My dear lady, what will become of you if you give way to these fits of violence? But for me, I really believe you would have been through the window. A pretty affair of spikes that would be! I should have had you laid up in my house for a month, covered over with sticking-plaster.'
'If you had not stopped me I might have caught that gig,' was her passionate rejoinder.
'Caught that gig! A gig going at the rate of ten miles an hour, if it was going one! By the time you had got down the steps of my door it would have been out of sight. How people can drive at that random rate in London streets, I can't think.'
'How can I find him? How can I find him?'
Her tone was quite a wail of anguish. However they might deprecate her mistaken violence, it was impossible but that both her hearers should feel compassion for her. She laid her hand on the doctor's arm.
'Will you not help me to find him, Dr. Bevary? Did you note him?'
'So far as to see that there were two persons in the gig, and that they were men, not women. Do you feel sure it was the man you speak of? It is so easy to be mistaken in a person who is being whirled along swiftly.'
'Mistaken!' she returned, in a strangely significant tone. 'Dr. Bevary, I am sure it was he. I have not kept him in my mind for years, to mistake him now. Austin Clay,' she fiercely added, turning round upon Austin, 'you speak; speak the truth; I saw you look after them. Was it, or was it not, the man whom I met at Ketterford?'