Colonel Clifford looked at him with contemptuous pity, and sent him home with John Baker in a close carriage.
Lucy Monckton was in the parlor of the Dun Cow waiting for her master. The detectives and some outdoor servants of Clifford Hall brought a short ladder and paillasses, and something covered with blankets, to the door. Lucy saw, but did not suspect the truth.
They had a murmured consultation with the landlady. During this Mark Waddy came down, and there was some more whispering, and soon the battered body was taken up to Mark Waddy's room and deposited on his bed. The detectives retired to consult, and Waddy had to break the calamity to Mrs. Monckton. He did this as well as he could; but it little matters how such blows are struck. Her agony was great, and greater when she saw him, for she resisted entirely all attempts to keep her from him. She installed herself at once as his nurse, and Mark Waddy retired to a garret.
A surgeon came by Colonel Clifford's order and examined Monckton's bruised body, and shook his head. He reported that there were no bones broken, but there were probably grave internal injuries. These, however, he could not specify at present, since there was no sensibility in the body; so pressure on the injured parts elicited no groans. He prescribed egg and brandy in small quantities, and showed Mrs. Monckton how to administer it to a patient in that desperate condition.
His last word was in private to Waddy. "If he ever speaks again, or even groans aloud, send for me. Otherwise--" and he shrugged his shoulders.
Some hours afterward Colonel Clifford called as a magistrate to see if the sufferer had any deposition to make. But he was mute, and his eyes fixed.
As Colonel Clifford returned, one of the detectives accosted him and asked him for a warrant to arrest him.
"Not in his present condition," said Colonel Clifford, rather superciliously. "And pray, sir, why did not you interfere sooner and prevent this lawless act?"
"Well, sir, unfortunately we were on the other side of the house."
"Exactly; you had orders to be in one place, so you must be in another. See the consequence. The honest men have put themselves in the wrong, and this fellow in the right. He will die a sort of victim, with his guilt suspected only, not proved."