Although Ralph Darrell was to all appearance dead, the doctor pronounced him to be still alive, and caused him to be lifted back to the bed, where he dressed his wound, at the same time administering restoratives. While this was being done, Major Arkell, taking charge of Peveril, led him to another room, in which his things, brought from the Trefethen house, had been placed. The young man was still trembling from his recent awful experience.
"In another minute all would have been over with me," he said, in describing the incident to his friend. "For I could no more loosen his clutch than if it had been a band of steel."
"That fall was a mighty lucky thing, then," commented the other.
"Yes, I suppose it was, for apparently nothing else could have saved me. At the same time, think how unpleasant it would have been for me if it had killed him, and I had been charged with his murder!"
"Oh, pshaw! no one would have imagined such a thing."
"His daughter did," replied Peveril, in whose ears Mary Darrell's terrible accusation was still ringing.
"She didn't know what she was saying. You must remember the trying circumstances of her position, and forgive and forget everything else. If I am any judge of human character, she is just the girl to bitterly regret her hasty words, if she ever recalls having uttered them."
"Of course I forgive her," said Peveril; "but I doubt if I can forget as long as I live."
A bath in water as hot as he could bear it, followed by a cold douche and a brisk rubbing with the coarse towels procured from Aunty Nimmo, restored the young man to his normal condition. Then he exchanged the ragged garb of a miner, that he had worn ever since leaving Red Jacket, for a suit of his own proper clothing. With this the transformation in his appearance was so complete that when, a little later, Mary Darrell passed him in the hall, it was without recognition. She only regarded him as one of the many strangers who seemed suddenly to have taken unauthorized possession of her home.
At breakfast-time the doctor reported that his patient was sleeping quietly and doing wonderfully well. "In fact," said the medical gentleman, "I believe the blood-letting that resulted from his fall was just what he needed; and, as he seems to have a vigorous constitution, unimpaired by intemperate living, I predict for him a speedy recovery."