And as it often is, the one who was thought least fitted to support a shock took it coolly. A lengthy experience of hunting accidents helped her to seize, comforted, on Rackham's report of concussion, and to believe in his blunt assurance that the whole thing was nothing worse than an ordinary spill. A more diplomatic messenger might have terrified her with his gentleness, but she suspected no concealment in a man who, without beating about the bush, looked her right in the face and lied. She did not see the men carry their burden in, and when the others came to her, relieving Rackham, she was comparatively calm. Her active fancy was diverted by measures that she ascribed to a misplaced anxiety for herself.
"I am not going to collapse," she insisted. "It's too ridiculous making this fuss about me and not letting me go to him. It's not the first time the poor boy has been brought back to me knocked silly. You needn't be so fidgety over me;—you had better look after Susan.... My dear, my dear, I know what it is! And concussion is a thing the doctors can't cut you to pieces for, thank Heaven. Give her a little brandy!"
Rackham's glance met the doctor's. The case was too serious to provoke a smile.
Lady Henrietta had turned to Susan.
"Oh," she said, with the air of one who wished to demonstrate to an over-anxious circle that she had her wits about her—"that telegram—! Of course you can't go now. We must wire up to town.—"
The girl listened to her without at first comprehending.
"Oh,—the telegram," she repeated. How pathetically absurd that futile invention sounded now.
"I must go to him," she said.
The doctor nodded encouragement.
"I'll bring a nurse back with me when I come again," he promised.