Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/164

152 of her life, so that when the labourers appeared, she said—

"He's very badly hurt. Go and fetch some more men and a hurdle, and the boy might run for the doctor. Tell him to come to the White House. It's nearest, and it may be dangerous to move him further."

"The 'Blue Lion' ain't but a furlong further, miss," said one of the men, touching his cap.

"It's much more than that," said she, who had but the vaguest notion of a furlong's length. "Do go and do what I tell you."

They went, and, as they went, remorselessly dissected, with the bluntest instruments, her motives and her sentiments. It was not hidden from them, that wordless whisper in the shadowy inner chamber of her heart. "Perhaps the 'Blue Lion' isn't so very much further, but I can't give him up. No, I can't." But it was almost hidden from her. In her mind's outer hall she said— "I'm sure I ought to take him home. No girl in a book would hesitate. And I can make it all right with mother. It would be cruel to give him up to strangers."

Deep in her heart the faint whisper followed—