Hark! Surely it was the sound of wheels coming towards her. "Help! oh, help!" she shouted. "Help! help! help!"
In another moment a brougham, drawn by two horses, appeared, coming slowly up the hill towards her.
The coachman at a word from his master drew up, and Millicent, now nearly fainting from terror and exhaustion, was helped into the carriage.
Giving directions to the coachman to drive home as quickly as possible, Dr. Shielding, for it was the medical superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum, the long building already referred to, drew from her between sobs and gasps the story of her fright.
At length they drew up before the doctor's house, in the grounds of the asylum, and with a hasty word of introduction, Dr. Shielding left Millicent and Mollie with his wife and daughter.
Summoning two burly-looking keepers, he stepped into his brougham again.
"To the Priory," he said, and then related the story to the men, describing the position of the attic as told him by Millicent, adding that he had just returned from a distant village, where he had been called for consultation about a case of rapidly developed homicidal mania of a local medical man, but the patient had eluded his caretaker, the previous day, and could not be found.
"I have no doubt it is the same man," he said, "and there he is!" he added, as they stopped before the Priory gate, to find the strange visitor was trying to descend from the window by the ivy.
There he clung, bag in hand, still five-and-twenty feet from the ground. When hearing their voices, he turned to look at them, and in so doing lost his hold, falling heavily to the ground.
They hastened to the spot, just in time to see a spasmodic quiver of the limbs as he drew his last breath. He had struck his head violently against a huge stone and broken his neck.