CHAPTER XXXV
His search being vain, Mutimer hastened from one police-station to
another, leaving descriptions of his sister at each. When he came
home again Adela had just arrived. She was suffering too much from
the reaction which followed upon her excitement to give him more
than the briefest account of what she had heard and said; but
Mutimer cared little for details. He drew an easy-chair near to the
fire and begged her to rest. As she lay back for a moment with
closed eyes, he took her faint hand and put it to his lips. He had
never done so before; when she glanced at him he averted his face in
embarrassment.
He would have persuaded her to go to bed, but she declared that
sleep was impossible; she had much rather sit up with him till news
came of Alice, as it surely must do in course of the night. For
Mutimer there was no resting; he circled continually about the
neighbouring streets, returning to the house every quarter of an
hour, always to find Adela in the same position. Her heart would not
fall to its normal beat, and the vision of those harsh faces would
not pass from her mind.
At two o'clock they heard that Alice was found. She had been
discovered several miles from home, lying unconscious in the street,
and was now in a hospital.
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