‘I wish you had come straight to me,’ said Mrs. Barton to Alice, as soon as Barnes had left the room.  ’We’d have got her upstairs between us, and then we might have told any story we liked about her illness.’

‘But the Lawlers’ gamekeeper would know all about it.’

’Ah, yes, that’s true.  I never heard of anything so unfortunate in my life.  An elopement is never very respectable, but an elopement that does not succeed, when the girl comes home again, is just as bad as—­I cannot think how Olive could have managed to meet Captain Hibbert and arrange all this business, without my finding it out.  I feel sure she must have had the assistance of a third party.  I feel certain that all this is Barnes’s doing.  I am beginning to hate that woman, with her perpetual smile, but it won’t do to send her away now; we must wait.’  And on these words Mrs. Barton approached the bed.

Shaken with sudden fits of shivering, and her teeth chattering, Olive lay staring blindly at her mother and sister.  Her eyes were expressive at once of fear and pain.

‘And now, my own darling, will you tell me how all this happened?’

’Oh, not now, mother—­not now . . .  I don’t know; I couldn’t help it. . . .  You mustn’t scold me, I feel too ill to bear it.’

’I am not thinking of scolding you, dearest, and you need not tell me anything you do not like. . . .  I know you were going to run away with Captain Hibbert, and met with an accident crossing the stile in the Lawler Wood.’

’Oh, yes, yes; I met that horrid woman, Mrs. Lawler; she knew all about it, and was waiting for me at the stile.  She said lots of dreadful things to me . . .  I don’t remember what; that she had more right to Edward than I—­’

‘Never mind, dear; don’t agitate yourself thinking of what she said.’

’And then, as I tried to pass her, she pushed me and I fell, and hurt my ankle so badly that I could not get up; and she taunted me, and she said she could not help me home because we were not on visiting terms.  And I lay in that dreadful wood all night.  But I can’t speak any more, I feel too ill; and I never wish to see Edward again. . . .  The pain of my ankle is something terrible.’

Mrs. Barton looked at Alice expressively, and she whispered in her ear: 

’This is all Barnes’s doing, but we cannot send her away. . . .  We must put a bold face on it, and brave it out.’

Dr. Reed was announced.

’Oh, how do you do, doctor? . . .  It is so good of you to come at once. . . .  We were afraid Mr. Barton would not find you at home.  I am afraid that Olive has sprained her foot badly.  Last night she went out for a walk rather late in the evening, and, in endeavouring to cross a stile, she slipped and hurt herself so badly that she was unable to return home, and lay exposed for several hours to the heavy night dews.  I am afraid she has caught a severe cold. . . .  She has been shivering.’