They were walking quickly up the hill as he spoke. Rhoda told him that Miss Merivale was waiting for them, and a couple of moments brought them to her side. She refused to accept at first Tom's emphatic assurances that Rose had escaped with only a bruise or two, and begged him to take her to the Rectory. Tom would not hear of her going. "Rose did not want to leave Miss Smythe, or I would have brought her home, Aunt Lucy. She is perfectly well. Rose is a plucky little girl She wasn't half as frightened as you are."
It was not till they got back to the house and he had made Miss Merivale drink the cup of tea Wilmot brought her, that he allowed her to know how serious Pauline's injuries were.
"They fear concussion of the brain," he said. "I have promised Hartley to telegraph for her friends. Can you give me their address?"
Miss Merivale hesitated. "I am afraid she has no near relatives, poor girl. I never heard her speak of any."
"But she is continually calling for 'Granny,' Mrs. Hartley says. Her grandmother ought to be here, if she has one. How could we find out?"
Rhoda, who had been sitting silent till then, now looked up and spoke. "Her grandparents live at Leyton, Miss Merivale. They have a shop next door to Aunt Mary's brother. Mr. Smith is a grocer."
Miss Merivale stared at her. "My dear, are you sure?"
"Quite sure," Rhoda answered. "I saw her photograph when I took little Hugh to his uncle's, and they talked a great deal about her. Polly, they call her. She writes to them constantly. They brought her up, and I expect she is really very fond of them."
"But--Rhoda, are you quite sure? Why has she never spoken of them? Do you think she was ashamed of the shop? It must have been that."
"She had no reason to be ashamed," Rhoda answered quietly. "They are dear, good people."
"Poor girl, poor girl!" was all Miss Merivale could say; but Tom, who had brought a telegraph form from the library, asked Rhoda to give him the address.
"I will send this off at once," he said, getting up. "She evidently wants to have her grandmother with her now. She calls continually for her."
When the twelve o'clock train stopped at the station next morning two passengers got out--a little old lady dressed with Quaker-like neatness, and a tall, grizzled, sunburnt man with a breezy, open-air look about him.