"Carefully--lift her feet a little--take care round this corner--so," she heard the sentence jerked out in the doctor's voice, and from her post of observation, she presently saw him emerge slowly into the hall, walking backwards, and holding an inanimate woman's head and shoulders in his arms. Holding her feet, bearing half the burden of her unconscious form, was a tall woman of the servant class, upon whose face the rays of the hall lamps fell fully, and Christina could see all the shrewd kindliness of the plain features. "Gently--wait a moment to rest. There--that's right--now then. Ah! the lantern," he exclaimed; "we must have the lantern across that dark garden." "I will bring the lantern," Christina called out, rather tremulously, but running down the stairs without delay. "I was sent to lock the gate after you; I can light you across the garden." She picked up the lantern from the hall table upon which Fergusson had placed it; and, with one shuddering glance at the flushed, heavily-breathing woman, who was being carried from the house, she put herself at the head of the strange little procession, lighting their footsteps as well as she was able. It was no easy task to lift the unfortunate creature, first through the green door, and then into the car, but Fergusson being an athletic man, with muscles in excellent order, and the tall servant being strong and well-built, their joint efforts succeeded in laying their burden along the cushions. Christina stood at the door for a moment, watching the car turn up the lane, but when its brilliant lights were engulfed by the darkness, she turned back with a shiver into the garden, locking and bolting the door with trembling fingers, and running up the dark path as though all the powers of evil were at her heels. The front door of the house she secured as firmly as the other, then, more than half-ashamed of the nameless terror that shook her, she sat down for a moment on an oak chest by the fire. "You silly coward," she said to herself; "you know you and a sick woman are alone in the house, and what are you afraid of?" But for all her attempt at courage, as she flew up the stairs again, she repeatedly looked over her shoulder, with a nervous dread of she knew not what. "Have they gone--safely gone? And is the door locked?" The words greeted her ears directly she entered the bedroom upstairs, and the dark eyes of the woman in the bed looked at her, with agonised questioning and dread. "Yes; they have driven away, and everything is locked up, and now I want to make you comfortable, and poke up the fire, and we shall be quite cosy in this nice warm room." Christina spoke cheerfully, all trace of her own nervous fears had vanished; she was intent on calming the troubled woman, whose feverish excitement was still only too apparent.