“Oh, if you will be so kind—as fast as you can go,” said Mary.
He seemed to look at her pitifully, she thought. All better hopes, if she had any, flew at the sight. She felt now that Hetty must be dying, that the case must be desperate. This delivered her from all feeling in respect to the old house where she had been brought up, the fields, the trees, the park—everything which she had known. What did she care about these associations now? She was as indifferent as if she had been but a week away, or as if she had never seen the place before.
The doctor met her at the door, looking so grave. She prepared herself for the worst again, and entered the old home without seeing or caring what manner of place it was. “Let me explain to you before you see her, Mrs. Asquith,” Darrell said, leading the way into the old library, which she knew so much better than he did.
“Oh, don’t keep me from her! Let me go to my child! Don’t break it to me! I can see—I can see in your face!”
“She is not in any danger,” he said.
Mrs. Asquith turned upon him with a gasp, having lost all power of speech: and then the self-control of misery gave way. She dropped into the nearest chair, and saved her brain and relieved her heart by tears. “May I trust you?” she asked piteously, with her quivering lips; “Hetty, my child—is in no danger?” as soon as she was able to speak.
“None that I can discover; but she is in a very alarming state. She has had a fright. It seems to have paralysed her whole being. I hope everything from your sudden appearance.”
“Paralysed!”
“I don’t mean in the ordinary sense of the word—turned her to stone, I should say. Oh, Mrs. Asquith, I fear you will think we have ill discharged the trust you gave us. Your daughter has been frightened out of her senses, out of herself.”
Mary had risen from her seat to go to her Hetty; she stared at him for a moment, and dropped feebly back again. “Do you mean that my child—my child is—mad?” she said with horror, clasping her hands.