Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/61

 "Oh!" gasped Rose. "Her Ladyship! It can't be true. Perhaps she's only fainted. Was it a motor accident?"

"No," said Sir Ian. "I want Tom to go back with me. Back — to the Tower. I think — I'm a little dazed. A doctor must come. And — the police."

Sick and tremulous as she was, the farmer's wife had not lost her wholesome good sense. She saw that, whatever the dreadful thing which had happened her husband's old Colonel was in no fit state to answer questions, and she determined to ask no more.

"If I could leave you here, sir, for a minute," she said trying to speak quietly, "I'd go call Jimmy Russell, and send him on my bicycle like a flash into Riding St. Mary, to fetch Doctor Unwin. Then — then on the way back, he could run out to the Police Station. Tom's got his bicycle with him, and won't be long getting home from the station. The train's due now, but you know it's generally a bit late."

"The doctor and the — police must come to the Tower," said Sir Ian, with the same somnambulist look in his eyes again.

"Yes, Sir Ian; I'll tell Jimmy. You'll stop here till I get back, won't you?"

"I don't know," the dreary voice answered, and the eyes that saw a nightmare turned toward the woods where, far away, the crown of the Tower rose among dark pine trees.