The ladies looked at each other, and Zoe saw something strange was coming; for the Klosking was very pale, yet firm, and fixed her eyes upon her as if there was nothing else in sight.

"You have a visitor--Mr. Severne?"

"Yes," said Zoe, drawing up.

"Can I speak with him?"

"He will answer for himself. EDWARD!"

At her call Severne came out hastily behind Ina Klosking.

She turned, and they faced each other.

"Ah!" she cried; and in spite of all, there was more of joy than any other pa.s.sion in the exclamation.

Not so he. He uttered a scream of dismay, and staggered, white as a ghost, but still glared at Ina Klosking.

Zoe's voice fell on him like a clap of thunder: "What!--Edward!--Mr.

Severne!--Has this lady still any right--"

"No, none whatever!" he cried; "it is all past and gone."

"What is past?" said Ina Klosking, grandly. "Are you out of your senses?"

Then she was close to him in a moment, by one grand movement, and took him by both lapels of his coat, and held him firmly. "Speak before this lady," she cried. "Have--I--no--rights--over you?" and her voice was majestic, and her Danish eyes gleamed lightning.

The wretch's knees gave way a moment and he shook in her hands. Then, suddenly, he turned wild. "Fiend! you have ruined me!" he yelled; and then, with his natural strength, which was great, and the superhuman power of mad excitement, he whirled her right round and flung her from him, and dashed out of the door, uttering cries of rage and despair.

The unfortunate lady, thus taken by surprise, fell heavily, and, by cruel ill luck, struck her temple, in falling, against the sharp corner of a marble table. It gashed her forehead fearfully, and she lay senseless, with the blood spurting in jets from her white temple.

Zoe screamed violently, and the hall and the hall staircase seemed to fill by magic.

In the terror and confusion, Harrington Vizard strode into the hall, from Taddington. "What is the matter?" he cried. "A woman killed?"

Some one cried out she had fallen.

"Water, fools--a sponge--don't stand gaping!" and he flung himself on his knees, and raised the woman's head from the floor. One eager look into her white face--one wild cry--"Great G.o.d! it is--" He had recognized her.

CHAPTER XX.

IT was piteous to see and hear. The blood would not stop; it spurted no longer, but it flowed alarmingly. Vizard sent Harris off in his own fly for a doctor, to save time. He called for ice. He cried out in agony to his servants, "Can none of you think of anything? There--that hat. Here, you women; tear me the nap off with your fingers. My G.o.d! what is to be done? She'll bleed to death!" And he held her to his breast, and almost moaned with pity over her, as he pressed the cold sponge to her wound--in vain; for still the red blood would flow.

Wheels ground the gravel. Servants flew to the door, crying, "The doctor!

the doctor!"

As if he could have been fetched in five minutes from three miles off.

Yet it was a doctor. Harris had met Miss Gale walking quietly down from Hillstoke. He had told her in a few hurried words, and brought her as fast as the horses could go.

She glided in swiftly, keen, but self-possessed, and took it all in directly.

Vizard saw her, and cried, "Ah! Help!--she is bleeding to death!"

"She shall not," said Rhoda. Then to one footman, "Bring a footstool, _you;"_ to another, _"You_ bring me a cork;" to Vizard, _"You_ hold her toward me so. Now sponge the wound."

This done, she pinched the lips of the wound together with her neat, strong fingers. "See what I do," she said to Vizard. "You will have to do it, while I--Ah, the stool! Now lay her head on that; the other side, man. Now, sir, compress the wound as I did, vigorously. Hold the cork, _you,_ till I want it."

She took out of her pocket some adhesive plaster, and flakes of some strong styptic, and a piece of elastic. "Now," said she to Vizard, "give me a little opening in the middle to plaster these strips across the wound." He did so. Then in a moment she pa.s.sed the elastic under the sufferer's head, drew it over with the styptic between her finger and thumb, and crack! the styptic was tight on the compressed wound. She forced in more styptic, increasing the pressure, then she whipped out a sort of surgical housewife, and with some cutting instrument reduced the cork, then cut it convex, and fastened it on the styptic by another elastic. There was no flutter, yet it was all done in fifty seconds.

"There," said she, "she will bleed no more, to speak of. Now seat her upright. Why! I have seen her before. This is--sir, you can send the men away."'

"Yes; and, Harris, pack up Mr. Severne's things, and bring them down here this moment."

The male servants retired, the women held aloof. f.a.n.n.y Dover came forward, pale and trembling, and helped to place Ina Klosking in the hall porter's chair. She was insensible still, but moaned faintly.

Her moans were echoed: all eyes turned. It was Zoe, seated apart, all bowed and broken--ghastly pale, and glaring straight before her.

"Poor girl!" said Vizard. "We forgot her. It is her heart that bleeds.

Where is the scoundrel, that I may kill him?" and he rushed out at the door to look for him. The man's life would not have been worth much if Squire Vizard could have found him then.

But he soon came back to his wretched home, and eyed the dismal scene, and the havoc one man had made--the marble floor all stained with blood--Ina Klosking supported in a chair, white, and faintly moaning--Zoe still crushed and glaring at vacancy, and f.a.n.n.y sobbing round her with pity and terror; for she knew there must be worse to come than this wild stupor.

"Take her to her room, f.a.n.n.y dear," said Vizard, in a hurried, faltering voice, "and don't leave her. Rosa, help Miss Dover. Do not leave her alone, night nor day." Then to Miss Gale, "She will live? Tell me she will live."

"I hope so," said Rhoda Gale. "Oh, the blow will not kill her, nor yet the loss of blood. But I fear there will be distress of mind added to the bodily shock. And such a n.o.ble face! My own heart bleeds for her. Oh, sir, do not send her away to strangers! Let me take her up to the farm.

It is nursing she will need, and tact, when she comes to herself."

"Send here away to strangers!" cried Vizard. "Never! No. Not even to the farm. Here she received her wound; here all that you and I can do shall be done to save her. Ah, here's Harris, with the villain's things. Get the lady's boxes out, and put Mr. Severne's into the fly. Give the man two guineas, and let him leave them at the 'Swan,' in Taddington."

He then beckoned down the women, and had Ina Klosking carried upstairs to the very room Severne had occupied.

He then convened the servants, and placed them formally under Miss Gale's orders, and one female servant having made a remark, he turned her out of the house, neck and crop, directly with her month's wages. The others had to help her pack, only half an hour being allowed for her exit.

The house seemed all changed. Could this be Vizard Court? Dead gloom--hurried whispers--and everybody walking softly, and scared--none knowing what might be the next calamity.

Vizard felt sick at heart and helpless. He had done all he could, and was reduced to that condition women bear far better than men--he must wait, and hope, and fear. He walked up and down the carpeted landing, racked with anxiety.

At last there came a single scream of agony from Ina Klosking's room.

It made the strong man quake.

He tapped softly at the door.

Rhoda opened it.

"What is it?" he faltered.