The girl’s temple was bruised and there was blood on her cheek; more than one of the blows aimed at her lover had fallen on her. But she said eagerly that it was “Nothing! Nothing!”
“Are you sure, Etruria?” Mary asked with concern.
“It is nothing, indeed, Miss,” the girl repeated. She was trying with shaking fingers to put up her hair.
“Then the sooner,” Audley rejoined, “we get this—this gentleman to my dogcart, the better. Take his other arm, Petch. Miss Audley, can you carry my gun?—it is not loaded. And you,” he continued to Etruria, “if you are able, take Petch’s.”
They took the guns, and the little procession wound down the path to the road, where they found a dogcart awaiting them, and, peering from the cart, two setters, whining and fretting. The dogs were driven under the seat, and the clergyman, still muttering that he was all right, was lifted in. “Steady him, Petch,” Audley said; “and do you drive slowly,” he added, to the other man. “You will be at the surgeon’s at Brown Heath in twenty minutes. Stay with him, Petch, and send the cart back for me.”
“But are you not going?” Mary cried.
“I am not going to leave you in the dark with only your maid,” he answered with severity. “One adventure a night is enough, Miss Audley.”
She murmured a word or two, but submitted. The struggle had shaken her; she could still see the men’s savage faces, still hear the thud of their blows. And she and Etruria had nearly a mile to go before they reached the park.
When they were fairly started, “How did it happen?” he asked.
Mary told the story, but said no word of Etruria’s romance.