CHAPTER XXI.

BOTH HUSBAND AND FATHER.

The two girls stood up and listened. The footsteps came forward swiftly, and with a light touch of the ground; too light, Ruth felt, with a sinking heart, for the heavy tread of her father. She had not the courage to cry out now. It seemed as if some one were coming to take that precious charge from her forever. This fear broke into a faint exclamation when she saw Sir Noel Hurst coming toward them more swiftly than she had ever seen him walk before. Without uttering a word, he came up to where the young man was lying, and bent over him in dead silence, as if unconscious that any other human being was near.

"He is not dead! Oh, Sir Noel, his heart beats. Don't--don't look so! He is not dead!"

"Lady Rose," said the baronet, "you heard--"

The lady shrank back, and faltered out--

"Yes; I heard a shot, and it frightened me."

The baronet made no answer, but bent over his son. The faint signs of life that Lady Rose had discovered were imperceptible to him. But habitual self-command kept his anguish down, and in a low, grave voice, he bade Ruth, whose presence he had not otherwise noticed, run to the mansion, and call help at once.

Ruth obeyed. Her nearest path led under the great cedar trees, where the blackest shadows fell, and she darted that way with a swift step that soon carried her into the darkness. But all at once came a cry out from the gloom, so sharp, so full of agony, that Sir Noel started up, and turned to learn the cause.

It came in an instant, out from the blackness of the cedars; for there Ruth appeared on the edge of the moonlight, pallid, dumb, shivering, with her face half averted, waving her hand back to the shadow.

"What is it? What has frightened you so?" he said.

"Look! look! I cannot see his face; but I know--I know!" she gasped, retreating into the darkness.

Sir Noel followed her, and there, lying as it seemed on a pall flung downward by the huge trees, lay the body of a man perfectly motionless.

"My father! Oh, my poor father!" cried the girl, falling down among the shadows, as if she sought to engulf herself in mourning.

"Be quiet, child. It may not be your father," said the baronet, still controlling himself into comparative calmness.

Ruth arose in the darkness, and crept toward the body. Her hand touched the hard, open palm that lay upon the moss where it had fallen. She knew the touch, and clung to it, sobbing piteously.

"Let me go and call help," said Lady Rose, coming toward the cedars.

"No," answered Sir Noel. "That must not be. This is no place for Lady Rose Hubert. The poor girl yonder has lost all her strength; it is her father, I greatly fear. Stay by him until you see lights, or know that help is coming. Then retire to the gardener's cottage. We must have no careless tongues busy with your name, Lady Rose."

Sir Noel strove to speak with calmness; but a shiver ran through his voice. He broke off abruptly, and, turning down the nearest path, walked toward "The Rest."

Meantime, there was bitter sorrow under the great cedar trees; low, pitiful moaning, and the murmurs of a young creature, smitten to the heart with a consciousness that the awful scene, with its train of consequences, had been her own work. She crept close to the man, afraid to touch him with her guilty fingers, but, urged on by a faint hope that he was not quite dead, she felt, with horror, that there was something heavier than dew on the bed of moss where he lay, and that for every drop of her father's blood she was responsible. Still she crept close to him, and at last laid both hands upon his shoulder. There was a vague motion under her hands, as if a wince of pain made the flesh quiver.

"Oh, if some one would help me. What can I do! What can I do!" she moaned, striving to pierce the darkness with her eyes. "Oh, father! father!"

"Ruth!"

The sound of that name was not louder than a breath of summer wind; but the girl heard it, and fell upon her face, prostrated by a great flood of thankfulness. She had not killed him; he was alive. He had spoken her name.

Directly the sound of voices swept that way, and the great cedar trees were reddened with a glare of torches, and a streaming light from lanterns. Then Lady Rose, who had been sitting upon the ground with Walton Hurst's head resting on her lap, bent down softly, kissed the white forehead, and stole away from all traces of light. Sir Noel had been thoughtful for her. She could not have borne that the eyes of those menial helpers, or their masters either, should see her ministering to a man who, perhaps, would hold her care, as he might her love, in careless indifference.

Yes, Sir Noel was right. She must not be found there.

Down through the trees she went, looking wistfully back at the figure left alone in the moonlight, tempted to return and brave everything, rather than leave him alone. But the torches came up fast and redly, hushed voices broke the stillness that had seemed so deathlike, and, envying that other girl, who was permitted to remain, the lady stole toward the cottage, and sinking down upon the porch, listened to the far-off tumult with a dull pain of the heart which death itself could hardly have intensified.

It was well that Lady Rose had fled from the path, along which some thirty men were coming--gentlemen in evening dress, gamekeepers and grooms, all moving under the torch-light, like a funeral procession.

With the tenderness of women, and the strength of men, they lifted Walton Hurst from the ground, and bore him toward the house. Ruth rose up in the darkness of the cedars, and saw him drifting away from her, with the red light of the torches streaming over the whiteness of his face, and then fell down by her father, moaning piteously.

By-and-by the torch-lights flashed and flamed under the cedars, lighting up their great, drooping branches, like a tent under which a wounded or perchance dead man was lying prone upon his back, with his strong arms flung out, and a slow ripple of blood flowing from his chest.

The torch-bearers took little heed of the poor girl, who had crept so close to her father that her garments were red with his blood, but lifted the body up with less reverential care than had marked the removal of the young master, but still not unkindly, and bore it away toward the house. Ruth arose, worn out with anguish, and followed in silence, wondering that she was alive to bear all this sorrow.

It seemed to Lady Rose that hours and hours had passed since she had sheltered her misery in that low porch, and this was true, if time can be measured by feeling. It was even a relief when she saw that little group of menials bearing the form of the gardener along the forest-path, which was slowly reddened by lanterns and half-extinguished torches. In the midst of this weird scene came Ruth Jessup, holding fast to her father's hand, with her pallid face bowed down, creeping, as it were, along the way, as if all life had been smitten from her.

A sort of painful pity seized upon Lady Rose, as she saw this procession bearing down upon the cottage. She could not look upon that poor girl without a sensation of shrinking dislike. Had not Hurst been on his way to her when he met with this evil fate? Had he not almost fled from her own presence to visit this beautiful rustic, whose desolation seemed so complete? Yes, she pitied the poor young thing; what woman could help it? But, underlying the pity, was a feeling of subdued triumph, that only one wounded man was coming that way.

All at once the girl started from her seat.

"They must not find me," she thought. "Sir Noel did not think of this when he bade me seek shelter here. I will go! I will go!"