"Yes," she muttered, with her countenance changing as she thrust the bottle carefully into her dress-pocket, with the result that there was another faint _chink_; "you may lock it now. I don't care. But wasn't it near?" She hesitated for a moment, as if about to go out by the front, but Cousin Thompson was not puzzled by seeing her pass, for she returned by the way she came, down the kitchen garden to the meadows, and through them and down by the river till she reached the nearest point to the Rectory garden, through which she passed, after stopping to pick a handful of parsley to carry into the house. Volume 3, Chapter XVII. BESIEGED. Dally had not reached the Rectory, and Horace North had not sat long thinking over the girl's words in a way which puzzled him, as it brought a curious feeling of rest and satisfaction to his brain, before a carriage came sharply along the King's Hampton road, and passed Moredock's cottage and Mrs Berens' pretty villa-like home. North was seated, with his head resting upon his hand, thinking. Miss Mary would be so pleased, the girl had said--pleased that he was better. It seemed strange to him, but the words set him picturing Mary Salis in the old days at the Rectory; then her accident, and how he had tended her. Then he thought of the sweet, pale, patient face, as she passed through that long time of bodily suffering, to be followed by the lasting period of what must have been terrible mental anguish as she found herself to be a hopeless, helpless invalid--changed, as it were by one sad blow, from a young and active girl to a dependent cripple. "Poor, gentle, patient Mary!" he said softly; and then, like a flash, his mind turned to the sister--her sick couch, her delirious declaration of her love, and his weak, blind folly in not grasping the fact that the tenderness she lavished upon him was meant for another. "No, you can't. Master's better, and he's engaged, and can't see patients." North started up on his seat, rigid, and with a wild look in his eyes, as he heard these loudly uttered words, and then sprang to the door. "Now, my dear Mrs Milt," said a soft, unctuous voice, which he knew only too well, "pray do not be excited. How can you speak like that?" "I speak what I think and feel, sir," retorted the old lady sharply. "What do these people want with master?" "To ask him to go and attend upon a patient who is in a dying state. There: pray come away. Really, Mrs Milt, you must not interfere like this." "I tell you, sir, master don't want to see patients, and he can't come out; so you must send them away." "Really, Mrs Milt," said Cousin Thompson, "this is insufferable. My good woman, you forget yourself." Every word reached North as he stood close to the door and realised that there was one woman ready to fight in his defence.