“Let me take it,” almost shouted Isaac. And, without waiting for assent or dissent, he seized the note from Mr. Hurde’s hand, caught up his hat, and was gone. Thomas Godolphin was stepping from his carriage as he passed out.
Isaac had not, this time, to go out of his way. The delivery of the note would necessitate his passing the Rectory. “Rose!” he uttered, out of breath with agitation as he had been before, “is papa not in?”
Rose was sitting there alone. “No,” she answered. “Mamma and Reginald went out just after you. Where did you send them to?”
“Then they can’t find him!” muttered Isaac to himself, speeding off again, and giving Rose no answer. “It will be nothing but ruin.”
A few steps farther, and whom should he see but his father. The Reverend Mr. Hastings was coming leisurely across the fields, from the very direction which Isaac had previously travelled. He had probably been to the Pollard cottages: he did sometimes take that round. Hedges and ditches were nothing to Isaac in the moment’s excitement, and he leaped one of each to get to him; it cut off a step or two.
“Where were you going an hour ago?” called out Mr. Hastings before they met. “You were flying as swiftly as the wind.”
“Oh, father!” wailed Isaac; “did you see me?”
“What should hinder me? I was at old Satcherley’s.”
“If you had only come out to me! I would rather have seen you then than—than—heaven,” he panted. “There’s a run upon the Bank. If you don’t make haste and draw out your money, you’ll be too late.”
Mr. Hastings laid his hand upon Isaac’s arm. It may be that he did not understand him; for his utterance was rapid and full of emotion. Isaac, in his eagerness, shook it off.