She was turning away with him when the doctor interfered with hesitating eagerness:—
"If you will permit me—I would suggest that your friend who came with you may be anxious. He will naturally try to find you. Not knowing that you are gone, he must be alarmed. If I knew him by sight, I could find him and tell him—"
Again his voice was lost in the rising roar of the multitude. The girl buried her face against the boy's shoulder, shudderingly and trembling, and burst into weeping.
"Tell me what to do, David! I can't bear this any longer," she sobbed. "Take me away. Tell me what to do! Oh! Oh!" putting her shaking hands over her ears to shut out the dreadful sounds.
The doctor touched her arm. "If you would allow me to take you home, perhaps this young gentleman could stay and find the person who came with you." He turned quickly to the boy. "You know him?"
"Yes," David replied unwillingly.
His heart had begun to beat high. Here was a better chance to prove himself a man than he had dared hope for. And now this bold stranger was trying to rob him of it. He struggled with himself for a moment, before he could give it up. But Ruth was crying and trembling and clinging to him.
"I will find William," he then said hastily. "Let the doctor take you home."
"But my horse is lost," Ruth lifted her head from David's shoulder and flashed a tearful, smiling glance at the doctor. "How can you take me?"
"Leave it to me," Paul Colbert said quickly, in the tone of a man used to meeting emergencies. "Come with me. I will find a way."