For an instant her heart stood still. But George glanced round as with fear, and his tones were sad. "He is taken!" she exclaimed, her pulses bounding on. "No. But care must be observed if we would prevent it. In that sense, he is at liberty. But it is not all sunshine, Maude; he is very ill." "Where is he?" she gasped. "Will you compose yourself if I take you to him? But we have need of great caution; we must make sure no prying eyes are spying at us." Her very agitation proved how great had been the strain upon her nervous system; for a few minutes he thought she would faint, as she stood leaning against the tree. "Only take me to him, George," she murmured. "I will bless you forever." Into the lodge and up old Canham's narrow staircase he led her. She entered the room timidly, not with the eager bound of hope, but with slow and hesitating steps, almost as she had once entered into the presence of the dead, that long past night at Trevlyn Farm. He lay as he had lain when George went out: the eyes fixed, the head beginning to turn restlessly, one hand picking at the coarse brown sheet. "Come in, Maude; there is nothing to fear; but he will not know you." She went in and stood for a moment gazing at him who lay there, as though it required time to take in the scene; then she fell on her knees in a strange burst, half joy, half grief, and kissed his hands and fevered lips. "Oh, Rupert, Rupert! My brother Rupert!" CHAPTER XLVIII DANGER The residence of Mr. King, the surgeon, was situated on the road to Barbrook, not far from the parsonage: a small, square, red-brick house, two storeys high, with a great bronze knocker on the particularly narrow and modest door. If you wanted to enter, you could either raise this knocker, which would most likely bring forth Mr. King himself; or, ignoring ceremony, turn the handle and walk in of your own accord, as George Ryle did, and admitted himself into the narrow passage. On the right was the parlour, quite a fashionable room, with a tiger-skin stretched out by way of hearth-rug; on the left a small apartment fitted up with bottles and pill-boxes, where Mr. King saw his patients. One sat there as George Ryle entered, and the surgeon turned round, as he poured some liquid from what looked like a jelly-glass, into a green bottle. Now, of all the disagreeable _contretemps_ that could have occurred, to meet that particular patient was about the worst. Ann Canham had not been more confounded at the sight of Policeman Dumps's head over the hedge, than George was at Policeman Dumps himself--for it was no other than that troublesome officer who sat in the patient's chair, the late afternoon's sun streaming on his head. George's active mind hit on a ready excuse for his own visit. "Is my mother's medicine ready, Mr. King?" "The medicine ready! Why, I sent it three good hours ago!"