tempt to run, but she found that running was impracticable from the
pain the movement caused her. Then she walked on through the hard
rain, steadily holding her arm against her side, but still looking
every moment through the trees on the side from which George might be
expected to reach her. But no one came near her on her way homewards.
Had she been calm enough to think of the nature of the ground, she
might have known that he could not have returned upon her so quickly.
He must have come back up the steep hill-side which she had seen him
descend. No;--he had gone away altogether, across the fells towards
Bampton, and was at this moment vainly buttoning his coat across his
breast, in his unconscious attempt to keep out the wet. The Fury was
driving him on, and he himself was not aware whither he was driven.

Dinner at the Hall had been ordered at five, the old hour; or rather
that had been assumed to be the hour for dinner without any ordering.
It was just five when Kate reached the front door. This she opened
with her left hand, and turning at once into the dining-room, found
her uncle and her aunt standing before the fire.

"Dinner is ready," said John Vavasor; "where is George?"

"You are wet, Kate," said aunt Greenow.

"Yes, I am very wet," said Kate. "I must go up-stairs. Perhaps you'll
come with me, aunt?"

"Come with you,--of course I will." Aunt Greenow had seen at once
that something was amiss.

"Where's George?" said John Vavasor. "Has he come back with you, or
are we to wait for him?"

Kate seated herself in her chair. "I don't quite know where he is,"
she said. In the meantime her aunt had hastened up to her side just
in time to catch her as she was falling from her chair. "My arm,"
said Kate, very gently; "my arm!" Then she slipped down against her
aunt, and had fainted.

"He has done her a mischief," said Mrs Greenow, looking up at her
brother. "This is his doing."

John Vavasor stood confounded, wishing himself back in Queen Anne
Street.

CHAPTER LVII

Showing How the Wild Beast Got Himself Back from the Mountains

About eleven o'clock on that night,--the night of the day on which
Kate Vavasor's arm had been broken,--there came a gentle knock at
Kate's bedroom door. There was nothing surprising in this, as of all
the household Kate only was in bed. Her aunt was sitting at this time
by her bedside, and the doctor, who had been summoned from Penrith
and who had set her broken arm,