and felt the importance of the situation. He lifted the Squire's
head, loosened his cravat and clothing, and rang for the servants,
who took the Squire upstairs.

There he lay as if in a drugged sleep. The surgeon drew a basin-
full of blood from him, but it was nearly six o'clock before he came
to himself. The dinner was completely disorganized, and some had
gone home long ago; but two or three remained.

'Bless my soul,' Baxby kept repeating, 'I didn't know things had
come to this pass between Dornell and his lady! I thought the feast
he was spreading to-day was in honour of the event, though privately
kept for the present! His little maid married without his
knowledge!'

As soon as the Squire recovered consciousness he gasped: ''Tis
abduction! 'Tis a capital felony! He can be hung! Where is Baxby?
I am very well now. What items have ye heard, Baxby?'

The bearer of the untoward news was extremely unwilling to agitate
Dornell further, and would say little more at first. But an hour
after, when the Squire had partially recovered and was sitting up,
Baxby told as much as he knew, the most important particular being
that Betty's mother was present at the marriage, and showed every
mark of approval. 'Everything appeared to have been done so
regularly that I, of course, thought you knew all about it,' he
said.

'I knew no more than the underground dead that such a step was in
the wind! A child not yet thirteen! How Sue hath outwitted me!