“I fancy, Mrs. Marple, that she may have sustained a blow on the head,” said Turvey. “Pray do not become agitated! It frequently happens, in such cases, that the sufferer does not regain consciousness for some appreciable time.”

“Ah! And sometimes, when they do,they find themselves dicked in the nob!” said Mr. Leek. “Addled!” he explained, for the benefit of one of the maids, who was looking at him in frightened enquiry.

Mrs. Marple gave a faint scream, and pressed a hand to her bosom. Mr. Leek thoughtfully offered her the sal volatile; and Turvey said, with a superiority his more forthright colleague found odious, that he apprehended no such melancholy sequel to the accident.

“Well, when she does come to herself, what you better do is to keep out of sight!” recommended Mr. Leek. “She’ll be all to pieces, and it won’t do her no good if the first thing she gets her ogles on is that hang-gallows face o’ yours!”

“Miss Morville,” said Turvey glacially, “is perfectly familiar with my countenance.”

“That don’t make it no better!” retorted Mr. Leek. “Nor you don’t have to use all them breakteeth words to me, because I ain’t the sort as can be gammoned easy! I knew a cove as talked the way you do — leastways, in the way of business I knew him! In fact, you remind me of him very strong. I disremember what his name was. He was on the dub-lay, and very clever with his fambles. He ended up in the Whit, o’ course.”

Fortunately, Miss Morville, at this perilous moment, stirred, and uttered a faint moan, which distracted everyone’s attention from the rival valets. Turvey at once picked up the sal volatile, and skilfully raised her sufficiently to enable her to swallow, while Mr. Leek, not to be outdone, held her broken arm. At first she paid no heed to Turvey’s request to her to open her mouth, but he persevered, and after a minute or two she seemed to collect herself, for she whispered something, and opened her eyes. Turvey then obliged her to drink the restorative, and she said, quite distinctly: “Oh, my head hurts me so!”

Turvey laid her down again, and turned away to direct one of the maids to procure a bowl of water, and some cloths.

“Martin!” uttered Miss Morville “No! Don’t let him go!”

“That’s right, miss!” said Mr. Leek hastily. “No one won’t let him go nowhere! Don’t you raise a breeze now!”

She raised one wavering hand to her head, but, to his relief, said no more. When the water was brought, and a wet cloth was laid over her brow, it was perceived that she had quite regained her senses, for she murmured a thank-you, and seemed perfectly to understand Turvey when he informed her that she had broken her arm, and must lie still until the doctor arrived to set the bone.

Long before Dr. Malpas reached Stanyon, the Dowager had been made aware of the fresh disaster which had overtaken her, and had descended the stairs to the Great Hall. She expressed concern over her young friend’s plight, and said that she did not understand how such a thing could have happened. She then announced her intention of sending a message instantly to Gilbourne House, and of herself remaining beside the sufferer.

“I should not wish Mrs. Morville to feel that any attention had been grudged,” she said. “But I do not know why there should be so many persons here. I do not understand how you came to allow it, Marple.”

This remark caused everyone except the housekeeper, Turvey, and her ladyship’s own maid, to withdraw from the Hall as unobtrusively as possible. The Dowager, seating herself majestically in a chair near the sofa, then recalled the various accidents which had befallen the members of her family, and the remedies which had been applied to their hurts; Turvey continued, unmoved, to renew the wet cloths about Miss Morville’s head; and Miss Morville lay with closed eyes, enduring a good deal of pain, but making no complaint.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Morville had arrived at the Castle before the doctor’s gig at last bowled up the avenue. Their daughter was able to smile at them, albeit rather wanly; and Mrs. Morville told her, with what the housekeeper thought a distressing lack of sensibility, that she would be better presently, and should be taken home as soon as the doctor had set her arm.

“Not yet!” Miss Morville said, for the first time showing signs of agitation. “Indeed, Mama, I could not!”

“No, my dear,” said her mother soothingly. “When you are better!”

The setting of the broken bone tried Miss Morville’s fortitude, but she bore it very well, only begging not to be moved for a little while, since she felt too faint to lift her head. The doctor said that the place for her to be in was her bed, but this suggestion was again productive of suppressed agitation.

“I think,” said Mrs. Morville, “that if she were to remain quietly on the sofa for a little while it would perhaps be best.”

“Ay, that’s it,” agreed the doctor, packing his bag again. “I have given her something which will make her very soon feel more the thing. No need for alarm, ma’am!”

At this moment, the Viscount walked into the Castle, and, perceiving that a large number of persons were gathered in the Great Hall, very naturally joined the party. He was much surprised to learn that Miss Morville had fallen downstairs, exclaiming, sympathizing, and asking so many questions that Mrs. Morville was provoked into telling him that what her daughter needed most was quiet.

“Ay, I’ll be bound she does!” said the Viscount, with ready understanding. “Head aching fit to split, eh, Miss Morville? Don’t I know it! Took a nasty toss myself once — forget the name of the place: somewhere near Tarbes, it was. Head didn’t stop aching for three days.”

“Well, I’ll come and see you again tomorrow, Miss Morville!” said Dr. Malpas bracingly. “I know I leave you in good hands.”

“Yes, and so many of them!” said Mrs. Morville, with a bright smile.

The doctor then went away, and Lord Ulverston, looking round the Hall, suddenly demanded: “But where’s Ger? Not still abed, is he?”

“No, my lord,” said Turvey. “His lordship is not, so far as I am aware, within the Castle.”

“What’s that?” said Ulverston. “He was feeling his wound — said he would rest!”

Miss Morville opened her eyes. “He went to Evesleigh,” she said.

“Evesleigh! Good God, why?”

The Dowager, who had been regaling the unwilling Mr. Morville with a long, and apparently pointless, anecdote about a set of persons whom he had neither met nor wished to meet, broke off to explain that if her stepson had gone to Evesleigh, it was to visit his cousin.

“I know that, ma’am!” said the Viscount impatiently. “How came you to let him go, Miss Morville? What can have possessed him to undertake the journey? He will be quite knocked up! Who accompanied him? That young groom of his?”

“No. I think — ” Miss Morville stopped. “I don’t know!” she ended uncommunicatively.

He looked down at her rather narrowly. “Know why he went, ma’am?”

“I — No.”

“Well, it sounds a havey-cavey business to me!” he said. He glanced round again, frowning. “Martin not home yet?”

“No,” she said, and resolutely closed her lips.

“Late, ain’t he?”

She was silent.

“Think I’ll ride to meet Ger!” said the Viscount.

“A very excellent idea!” said Mrs. Morville warmly. “If I were you, I would go at once!”

“I will!” said the Viscount, and strode off without ceremony.

He reached the head of the terrace steps in time to see the Earl’s curricle come sweeping through the vaulted arch of the Gate Tower. The grays were being driven at a spanking pace, and the Viscount was thunderstruck to perceive that it was Martin who held the reins. He was still standing staring incredulously when the curricle drew up at the foot of the steps, and Martin, whose new-found humility had not deterred him from arguing hotly with his brother on certain of the finer points of driving, said triumphantly: “Now own I have not overturned you!”

“Oh, I do! How thankful I am I didn’t bring a high-perch phaeton into Lincolnshire!” said the Earl, preparing to alight.

Martin grinned, but merely said that he would drive the curricle to the stables. The Viscount ran down the steps, exclaiming wrathfully: “I’ll teach you to hoax me, Ger! What the devil have you been about?”

“Minding my own business,” replied Gervase, with one of his mischievous looks.

The Viscount helped him to descend from the curricle. “You deserve to be laid-up for a week! Let me tell you, I was just about to come in search of you!”

“Unnecessary, Lucy! Martin was before you, and, as you see, has driven me home. I am not in the least knocked-up, I assure you.”

“Just as well!” said the Viscount. “There’s another on the sick-list now!”

“Oh?” said the Earl, beginning to mount the steps. “Who?”

“Miss Morville. Fell downstairs, or something. Sick as a cushion!”

“Miss Morville?” said Gervase quickly. “Is she much hurt?”

“Broken her arm. Can’t think how she came to do it!”

“Good God!” exclaimed Gervase, swiftly mounting the remaining steps.

“They carried her into the Great Hall,” said Ulverston, catching up with him. “But what’s all this, Ger? Come on, now! No humdudgeon! What tricks has that brother of yours been playing on you? Out with it!”

“None at all. I’ll explain it to you presently, Lucy, but not now! Only don’t look daggers at Martin! It wasn’t he who tried to murder me!”

“I suppose he told you so! Upon my word, Ger — ! And what about that Leek of his?”

“Lucy, how can you be such a greenhorn?” demanded Gervase, casting his hat and his gloves on to the settle in the vestibule. “Did you never see a Bow Street Runner before?”

He then strode towards the Great Hall, checked for an instant on the threshold, blinking at the unexpected number of persons assembled there, and then perceived Miss Morville, lying on one of the sofas, interestingly pale, and with one arm in a sling. She had raised herself from her supporting cushions, and was looking towards the doorway, so painful an expression of anxiety in her white face that the Earl forgot his surroundings, and, wholly ignoring everyone else in the Hall, quickly crossed the floor, exclaiming: “My poor dear! Why, what has happened to you, my poor child?”

He dropped on his knee beside the sofa, taking the hand that was trying to grasp one of the capes of his coat, and holding it comfortingly. Miss Morville, equally oblivious of her entourage, gazed worshipfully into the blue eyes so tenderly smiling at her, and said foolishly: “You are safe! Nothing dreadful happened to you!”

“Nothing more dreadful than being driven back to Stanyon by Martin!” he assured her. “But you! How came you to tumble down the stairs as soon as my back was turned?”

“The stupidest thing!” said Miss Morville, despising herself. “I wanted to stop Martin — I thought it was the one thing that would put you in danger! Only I tripped over my train, and fell! I cannot think how I came to do such a thing!”

The Earl slipped his arm behind her, and raised the hand he was still holding to his lips. “You guessed it all, didn’t you, most wise and most foolish Miss Morville?”

Miss Morville, finding his shoulder so invitingly close, was glad to rest her head against it. “Oh no! How could I think such a terrible thing? Was it true? I would not tell you the thoughts in my head, because they were so very dreadful! Besides,” she added, “it was not my business, and I was so very nearly sure that you knew!”

Her overstrained nerves then found relief in a burst of tears. But as the Earl chose to kiss her at this moment, she was obliged to stop crying, the merest civility compelling her to return his embrace. As soon as she was able to speak, she said, however, in a voice meant only for his ears: “Oh, no! Pray do not! It was all my folly, behaving in this missish way! You felt yourself obliged to comfort me! I assure you, I don’t regard it — shall never think of it again!”

“My poor dear, you must be very much shaken to say anything so foolish!” said the Earl lovingly. “Never did I think to hear such nonsense on my sage counsellor’s lips!”

“You would become disgusted with my odious common-sense. Try as I will, I cannot be romantic!” said Miss Morville despairingly.

His eyes danced. “Oh, I forbid you to try! Your practical observations, my absurd robin, are the delight of my life!”

Miss Morville looked at him. Then, with a deep sigh, she laid her hand in his. But what she said was: “You must mean a sparrow!”