"Now," he said, quickly, "would ye rather go away, Miss Lucy? If yes, there's the door!"
"Can I help you?" Lucy was very pale; she felt sick, a little faint.
"If ye were ye're mother, I should say _yes_----"
"'Twould be an ill thing if such a brave pair had produced a chicken-livered lass, eh?"
He did not speak again till everything there was to see had been seen, till everything there was to do had been done; it seemed a very long business to Lucy, and by the time the doctor had finished tears were rolling down her face. How could she have thought that perhaps Mrs. Rebell was not much hurt after all? "Now ye're just to have a good sip of that brandy ye've been giving Mrs. Rebell. I'm well pleased with ye both!" And when Lucy shook her head, he gave her such a look that she hastened to obey him, and suddenly felt a flash of sympathy for drunkards. How wonderful that a few spoonfuls of this horrid stuff should check her wish to cry, and make her feel sensible again!
As Doctor McKirdy unceremoniously signified that he could dispense with her presence, as he unlocked the door for her to pass through, something in Lucy's face made him follow her, unwillingly, into the passage. "What is it?" he said sharply.
"Oh, Doctor McKirdy! Do you think she will die?"
"Die? Are ye mad, my poor lass? There's no question of such a thing. She's more likely to die o' cold than anything else! Now go downstairs and send your fine friend Mr. Boringdon and McGregor this way. We've got to move her to the Queen's Room. There have been big fires there all this week--regard for the furniture, the apple of Mrs. Turke's eye, I said they were to get it ready--but we shall have a business getting her down there."
The long, painful progress down the winding staircase was safely over. Barbara was comfortably settled in the great square canopied bed, where, if tradition could be believed, Queen Elizabeth and her less magnificent successor had both, at intervals of fifty years, reposed. Madame Sampiero's Scotch attendant was installed as nurse, and there was nothing left for Lucy Kemp to do but to go home to her solitary breakfast at the Grange. Boringdon, after having done his part, and a very useful one, in lifting and carrying Mrs. Rebell down the two flights, had retreated into the broad corridor, and was walking up and down waiting--he himself hardly knew for what.