"Why, what has come to it?"
Miss Bettina, all amazed, and scarcely believing the information, went hastily to the window, and looked towards the station. At that moment the other servant, Dorcas, came into the room. She was not a stranger to the family, having once lived with Miss Davenal, before that lady took up her abode with her brother. Dorcas was getting on to be middle-aged,--a sensible-looking woman, with a turned-up nose and reddish hair.
"Miss Sara," she whispered, "they are saying there's been an accident to the train."
Sara Davenal's heart seemed to stand still and then bound on again as if it would break its bounds.
"Who says it?" she gasped.
"I saw the folks standing about, and talking one to the other; so I opened my kitchen winder, and asked what was amiss, and they said the seven o'clock train was not in, that it had met with an accident. Miss Sara"----
But Miss Sara had turned from her. Silently snatching her shawl and bonnet from the sofa where she had laid them, she quitted the room, the unconscious Miss Davenal standing yet at the window. Dorcas followed her, and, by the lights that were now being carried in, she saw how white she looked.
"Miss Sara, I was about to say that it may not be true," continued Dorcas, as Sara hastily flung on her things. "I don't think it is: there'd be more uproar at the station if any news of that sort had been brought in."
"I am going over to see; I cannot remain in this suspense. Not go by myself?" she repeated, in reply to the woman's remonstrance; "nonsense, Dorcas! Everybody knows me: I am Dr. Davenal's daughter. You stay with my aunt Bettina, and be sure don't alarm her if you can help it."
Pulling the door open with her own hand, she passed under the red light of Mr. Cray's professional lamp, and hastened by the side-path and the bridge round to the station. Her face was pale, her pulses were beating. Sara Davenal had a quick imagination, and all the horrors of accidents by rail that she had ever heard seemed to rise up before her.