Part 48 (1/2)

”You must be getting cramped,” he said. ”Let me try and make you more comfortable.”

She let him help her to her feet, and afterward try to find a new position. While doing so, he paused a moment and seemed to be hesitating. Then he bent toward her and said very quietly:

”If you would lean on me, Paddy, I could keep you so warm and comfortable.”

He waited for her to speak.

”I would rather not,” she answered, in a low, strained voice, and he said no more about it.

Presently, however, when she seemed to be settled as comfortably as circ.u.mstances would permit, he asked: ”Would you rather I left you, and tried to get down the mountain to fetch help?”

She caught her breath with a queer little gulp, and he leaned lower to catch her answer.

”I don't want to bother you, Paddy, and I'm not afraid. I will go and try, if you would rather.”

Still there was no answer. Paddy was wrestling between a wish for him to stay and a feeling that, to be true to herself, she ought to tell him to go.

Lawrence stood upright and looked down at her a few moments in silence.

At last he spoke again, and there was a suggestion of pain in his voice:

”I won't worry you, Paddy, if you'll let me stay. I--I would much rather not leave you here alone.” He leaned down. ”What shall I do, Paddy?”

”Don't go,” she said in a low voice he could only just distinguish, but his face brightened all over instantly, as he turned away to busy himself again with the fire, afterward taking up his stand once more on the far side from her.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

THE RESCUE.

Meanwhile the little ladies at the Parsonage looked anxiously out into the fog, and wondered that Paddy should have gone to Mourne Lodge on such a night.

”I suppose they will keep her until to-morrow,” Miss Jane remarked; ”but I am rather sorry she went. It is just the weather to take cold.”

And at Mourne Lodge Mrs Blake said: ”How odd of Lawrence to stay at the Parsonage so late. Did you say he went home with Paddy, Doreen?”

Doreen looked worried, but she only replied:

”Yes; he said he should not be late.”

Another half-hour pa.s.sed, and then Mrs Blake asked; ”What made him go home with Paddy at all, Doreen?”

Doreen was now fidgeting nervously, glancing constantly at the clock, and at last she decided to tell her mother exactly what had pa.s.sed.

Almost before she had finished, Mrs Blake was out in the hall peremptorily ordering one of the stable-boys to be sent for at once, and she waited at the open door until he came.

”Take a bicycle,” she cried, in the same decisive manner, ”and ride as hard as you can to Omeath Parsonage. Go to the back door, and, without making any noise, find out from the servants if Mr Lawrence has been there this evening. If he is there it is all right! but if not, come back here as quickly as possible, and tell them not to let the Misses O'Hara know that you came. Do you understand?”

”Yes, m'm,” and in two seconds the boy was gone.

Another anxious half-hour pa.s.sed, during the whole of which Mrs Blake paced the drawing-room, quite unable to sit still a moment. When she heard a step on the gravel, she hurried instantly to the front door.

”Is he there?” she asked, quite unable to conceal her anxiety.