CHAPTER V

All had been done that could be done.  Mrs. Barnet was in her own house under medical hands, but the result was still uncertain.  Barnet had acted as if devotion to his wife were the dominant passion of his existence.  There had been much to decide—­whether to attempt restoration of the apparently lifeless body as it lay on the shore—­whether to carry her to the Harbour Inn—­whether to drive with her at once to his own house.  The first course, with no skilled help or appliances near at hand, had seemed hopeless.  The second course would have occupied nearly as much time as a drive to the town, owing to the intervening ridges of shingle, and the necessity of crossing the harbour by boat to get to the house, added to which much time must have elapsed before a doctor could have arrived down there.  By bringing her home in the carriage some precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own bed in seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every possible restorative brought to bear upon her.

At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the yellow evening sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his eyes as each wayside object rushed past between him and the west!  Tired workmen with their baskets at their backs had turned on their homeward journey to wonder at his speed.  Halfway between the shore and Port-Bredy town he had met Charlson, who had been the first surgeon to hear of the accident.  He was accompanied by his assistant in a gig.  Barnet had sent on the latter to the coast in case that Downe’s poor wife should by that time have been reclaimed from the waves, and had brought Charlson back with him to the house.

Barnet’s presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next duty to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself might break the news to him.

He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his leaving the shore.  By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in the carriage, a much larger group had assembled to lend assistance in finding her friend, rendering his own help superfluous.  But the duty of breaking the news was made doubly painful by the circumstance that the catastrophe which had befallen Mrs. Downe was solely the result of her own and her husband’s loving-kindness towards himself.

He found Downe in his office.  When the solicitor comprehended the intelligence he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment perfectly still, as if bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders heaved, he pulled out his handkerchief and began to cry like a child.  His sobs might have been heard in the next room.  He seemed to have no idea of going to the shore, or of doing anything; but when Barnet took him gently by the hand and proposed to start at once, he quietly acquiesced, neither uttering any further word nor making any effort to repress his tears.