aunter obeyed, and
together the two men lifted Mr. May and carried him to his own room. In
a moment it seemed that the house knew what had happened.

A scene of panic and hysteria followed below stairs, and, without Jane
Bond's description of it, Mary knew the people were running out of the
house as from a plague. She left her father with Masters, and strove to
calm the frightened domestics. She spoke well, and explained that the
event, horrible though it was, yet proved that no cause for their alarm
any longer existed.

"If it had been a wicked spirit we do not understand, it would have had
no power over Mr. May, who was a saint of God," she said. "Be at peace,
restrain yourselves, and fear nothing now. There is no ghost here. Had
it been a demon or any such thing, it must have been conscious, and
therefore powerless against Mr. May. This proves that there is some
fearful natural danger which we have not yet discovered hidden in the
room, but no harm can happen to anybody if they do not go into the room.
The police are coming from Scotland Yard in an hour or two, and you may
feel as sure, as I do, and Sir Walter does, that they will find out the
truth, whatever it is. You must none of you think of leaving before they
come. If you do, they will only send for you again. Please prepare your
breakfast and be reasonable. Sir Walter is terribly upset, and it would
be a base thing if any of you were to desert him at a moment like this."

They grew steadier before her, and Mrs. Forbes, the housekeeper, who
believed what Mary had said, added her voice.

Then Sir Walter's daughter returned to her father, who was with Masters
in the study. A man had already started for a doctor, but with Mannering
away there was none nearer than Neon Abbot.

Mary called on Masters to assert his authority, and reassure the
household as she had done. She told him her argument, and he accepted it
as a revelation.

"Thank God you could keep your senses and see that, ma'am! Tell the
master the same, and make him drink a drop of spirits and get into his
clothes. He's shook cruel!"

He had already brought the brandy, which was his panacea for all ills,
and now left Mary and her father together. She found him collapsed,
and forgot the cause for a few moments in her present concern for him.
Indeed, she always thought, and often said afterwards, that but for
the minor needs for action that intervened in this series of terrible
moments she must hers