"The witch! The cat-faced woman!" he screamed. "She wants to go to her mother! Wants to play the trick she killed Basil Stanhope with! She shall not! She shall not! I will kill her first! She is mad! I will send her to an asylum! She is a little devil! I will send her to hell! Nothing is bad enough--nothing----"
"Mr. Mostyn," said Tyrrel.
"Out of my house! What are you doing here? Away! This is my house! Out of it immediately!"
"This man is insane," said Tyrrel to Dora. "Put on your hat and cloak, and come home with us."
"I am waiting for Justice Manningham," she answered with a calm subsidence of passion that angered Mostyn more than her reproaches. "I have sent for him. He will be here in five minutes now. That brute"--pointing to Mostyn--"must be kept under guard till I reach my mother. The magistrate will bring a couple of constables with him."
"This is a plot, then! You hear it! You! You, Tyrrel Rawdon, and you, Saint Ethel, are in it, all here on time. A plot, I say! Let me loose that I may strangle the cat-faced creature. Look at her hands, they are already bloody!"
At these words Dora began to sob passionately, the servants, one and all, to comfort her, or to abuse Mostyn, and in the height of the hubbub Justice Manningham entered with two constables behind him.
"Take charge of Mr. Mostyn," he said to them, and as they laid their big hands on his shoulders the Justice added, "You will consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Mostyn."
And when nothing else could cow Mostyn, he was cowed by the law. He sank almost fainting into his chair, and the Justice listened to Dora's story, and looked indignantly at the brutal man, when she showed him her torn dress and bruised shoulder. "I entreat your Honor," she said, "to permit me to go to my mother who is now in London." And he answered kindly, "You shall go. You are in a condition only a mother can help and comfort. As soon as I have taken your deposition you shall go."
No one paid any attention to Mostyn's disclaimers and denials. The Justice saw the state of affairs. Squire Rawdon and Mrs. Rawdon testified to Dora's ill-usage; the butler, the coachman, the stablemen, the cook, the housemaids were all eager to bear witness to the same; and Mrs. Mostyn's appearance was too eloquent a plea for any humane man to deny her the mother-help she asked for.