"Back to the offices?" they asked, disregarding the question.
"Yes, back to the offices. He said he must make haste, for he had a great deal to do today. I am sure you will find him there." She had no suspicion that she was asserting what was not true. Whether they believed it or not--though most of them did believe it--they had no resource but to act upon it. Filing out again, they jumped into the cabs, and rattled back at the rate of nine-and-twenty miles an hour.
Leaving Mrs. Cray in a grievous state of perplexity and of distress: for they had spoken of "ruin" as connected with the mine. She was one of those who cannot bear suspense: she had no patience; no endurance, not even for an hour. In a tumult of hurry and emotion, she had her carriage brought round, called for Sara Davenal, to whom, however, she did not tell what had taken place, and drove on to the City almost as fast as those cabs had driven, to get an explanation of Mark.
The cabs had arrived previously, and their occupants found they had been deceived. No Mark Cray was at the offices, or had been there since his first departure from them. They burst bounds, in tongue at any rate, and talked of warrants and prosecutions and various inconvenient things. Other shareholders joined in the general fury, and it may perhaps be excused to them that when the carriage of Mark Cray suddenly appeared in the general melée, they turned their rage upon it.
That is, they pressed round it and saluted it with reproaches not at all soft or complimentary. Possibly in the moment's blind anger they did not see that Mark himself was not its occupant. They were, on the whole, men who knew how to behave themselves, and would have desisted, perhaps apologised, when they had had time and calmness to see that only ladies were there: but that time was not allowed them.
One came, with his tall strong form, his pale, resolute, haughty face, and pushed them right and left, as he laid his hand on the carriage door.
"Are you men?" he asked. "Don't you see that you are terrifying these ladies? Stand back. I had thought----"
"Oh, Oswald, save us! save us!" came the interrupting cry, as Caroline Cray caught his hand. "What is it all? what has happened?"
He got her out of the carriage and into some adjacent offices, whose friendly doors were opened to them. Sara followed, unmolested, and Oswald went back to rescue, if might be, the carriage. But the gentlemen had been a little recalled to common-sense by the incident: and the carriage was no longer in danger. Smashing Mark Cray's carriage would not make good their losses, or bring forth him who was missing. Oswald returned to Mrs. Cray.
"It is all right again now," he said. "The carriage is waiting for you a little further off. Shall I take you to it?"