“I am not blaming you. She cannot bide to hear a word, and so she’s been all this long time. Now and then her heart will speak for the others--them that suffer and have suffered--but it aye goes back to him. And I don’t blame her neither,” said Bampfylde. “Its aye her son to her, that was a gentleman and her pride.” He had placed himself not on the comfortable chair which Geoff had pushed forward for him, but on the hard seat formed by the library steps, where he sat with his elbows on his knees, and his head supported in his hands, thus reposing himself upon himself. “It’s good to rest,” he said, with something of the garrulousness of weakness, glad in his exhaustion to stretch himself out, as it were, body and soul, and ease his mind after long silence. He almost forgot even his mission in the charm of this momentary repose. “Poor woman!” he added, pathetically; “I’ve never blamed her. This was her one pride, and how it has ended--if it were but ended! No,” he went on after a pause, “please God there will be no harm. He’s no murdering-mad, like some poor criminals that have done less harm than him. It’s the solitary places he flees to, not the haunts o’ men; we’re brothers so far as that’s counting. And I drop a word of warning as I go. I tell the folks that I hear there’s a poor creature ranging the country that is bereft of his senses, and a man after him. I’m the man,” said Bampfylde, with a low laugh, “but I tell nobody that; and oh the dance he’s led me!” Then rousing himself with an effort, “But I’m losing time, and you’re losing time, my young lord. If you would be a help to them you should be away. Get out your horse or your trap to take you to the train.” “Where has she gone--by the train?” “Ay--and a long road. She’s away there last night, the atom, all by herself. That’s our blood,” said Bampfylde, with again the low laugh, which was near tears. “But I need not say our blood neither, for her father has suffered the most of all, poor gentleman--the most of all! Look here, my young lord,” he said, suddenly rising up, “if I sit there longer I’ll go to sleep, and forget everything; and we’ve no time for sleep, neither you nor me. Here’s the place. There’s a train at half-past eleven that gets there before dark. You cannot get back to-night; you’ll have to leave word that you cannot get back to-night. And go now; go, for the love of God!”