moment more, were no longer outside the gates but within them. An uproarious crowd of men and boys poured into the garden, trampling the lawn and flower-beds beneath their feet as they rushed and stumbled over them.
"Wheer is he?" they shouted. "Bring the chap out, an' let's tak' a look at him. Bring him out!"
Ffrench moved toward the door of the room, and then, checked by some recollection, turned back again.
"Good Heaven!" he said, "they are at their worst, and here we are utterly alone. Why did Haworth go away? Why——"
His daughter interrupted him.
"There is no use in your staying." she said. "It will do no good. You may go if you like. There is the back way. None of them are near it."
"I—I can't leave you here," he stammered. "Haworth was mad! Why, in Heaven's name——"
"There is no use asking why again," she replied. "I cannot tell you. I think you had better go."
Her icy coldness would have been a pretty hard thing to bear if he had been less terror-stricken; but he saw that the hand with which she held the window-curtain was shaking.
He did not know, however, that it was not shaking with fear, but with the power of the excitement which stirred her.
It is scarcely possible that he would have left her, notwithstanding his panic, though, for a second, it nearly seemed that he had so far lost self-control as to be wavering; but as he stood, pale and breathless, there arose a fresh yell.
"Wheer is he? Bring him out! Murdoch, th' 'Merican chap! We're coom to see him!"
