Sage shrieked, and then staggered to the bank, cowering against the hedge, as, recovering himself from the attack, and driven to defend himself, Cyril seized his a.s.sailant, and for the next few minutes there was the sound of hard breathing, muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, the scuffling noise of feet upon the gravelly road, and then a heavy fall, Luke Ross being seen in the gathering gloom of the winter's evening to be above his rival, who lay motionless, with Luke's knee upon his chest, his hands upon his throat.

The sight before her nerved Sage to action, and she tottered to where the two men were.

"Luke," she cried; "Luke, are you mad? Oh, help, help, help!"

"Mad? Am I mad?" he said, hoa.r.s.ely, as Sage's shrieks rang out shrilly on the evening air. "Yes, I must be mad," he muttered, as he rose slowly to his feet, and stood gazing down at his lost love, who now threw herself frantically upon her knees, and raised Cyril's head upon her arm.

"And I came back for this," said Luke, in a husky whisper--"for this!"

But she did not hear him; her mind being taken up with the horror of her position.

"I came back for this," he continued, in the same low, husky tone. "I would not believe it true. Oh, Sage, Sage!" he groaned aloud, "it is more than I can bear."

He staggered away along the lane by which he had come, hatless, his coat torn, his throat open, and the rain, that had now begun to fall, beating upon his fevered head. Footsteps were hurrying towards the spot where he had encountered her he loved and his rival. But he heard them not; he only staggered on--on into the gathering night, with a vague feeling that he must go away somewhere to find rest for his aching brain-- anywhere to be away from her.

One moment he stopped, for he heard Sage's voice raised in a loud cry; but it was not repeated, and with a bitter laugh, he now tore on at headlong speed, running not from pursuit, but from sheer desire for action. On and on, quite heedless of the direction he took, so that he might get away--onward and onward through the wind and rain.

PART ONE, CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

A WILLING INVALID.

The footsteps heard as Luke Ross hurried away were those of the Churchwarden. He had been round the farm according to his custom when his after-dinner pipe was ended, and then spent his usual amount of time over sc.r.a.per and mat, getting rid of the superabundant earth that always seemed to cling to his boots.

"Shortest day, mother," he said, entering the long parlour where Mrs Portlock was seated watching the fire, with her knitting upon her knees.

"Be dusk directly. Sage come in?"

"No, not yet. It is hardly her time," was the reply. "But you need not fidget about her."

"Wasn't fidgeting about her," said the Churchwarden, shortly, for the meaning tone in his wife's words annoyed him. All that afternoon he had been thinking of Luke Ross, and it had struck him that it was just upon the young man's time for paying a visit home.

"And then we shall be having him up here, and he'll learn all about Sage. Hang me if I think that I ought to have listened to parson as I did!"

These thoughts had come to him over and over again, troubling him more than he cared to own, for there was something frank and manly about Luke Ross that he had always liked, and in spite of his own uncompromising refusal to sanction any engagement, he did not feel happy in his mind about the treatment the young man had received.

"Look here, mother," he said, sharply, after standing at the front door for a few minutes, watching for Sage's return, "this is your doing."

"What is my doing?" she replied; "but there, for goodness' sake, Joseph, do come in or stop out. You've done nothing but open and shut that door."

The Churchwarden shut the front door with a bang, and strode up to the fire.

"I say this is your doing about Sage, and I don't half like it after all."

"There, there, there!" she cried. "I wish to goodness you'd mind the farm, and leave women and their ways alone. What in the world do you understand about such things?"

"I don't think we've been doing right," he said; "and I'm afraid that no good will come of it."

"Stuff and nonsense, dear. Why any one, with half an eye, could have seen that the poor girl was fretting her heart out about young Mallow."

"She didn't fret her heart out about Luke Ross," said the Churchwarden, st.u.r.dily.

"About him!" said Mrs Portlock, in a tone of contempt. "How could she?

Cyril Mallow's worth a dozen of him."

"Proof of the pudding is in the eating," said the Churchwarden, kicking at a piece of blazing coal with his boot toe.

"Yes, and a very unpleasant bit of pudding Mr Luke Ross would have been to eat. There, you hold your tongue, and let things go on. You ought to be very proud that matters have turned out as they have."

"Humph! Well, I'm not a bit proud," he replied; "and I'm very sorry now that I have let things go on so easily as I have. You may see Luke Ross when he comes down, for I won't."

"Oh! I'll see him," she replied. "That's easily done. Why, Joseph, you ought to be ashamed to think of them both on the same day. Our Sage will be his lordship's sister-in-law."

"Hang his lordship! Well, perhaps I am, wife, and it's because I'm afraid that Luke Ross is the better man of the two. Why, look here, it's getting quite dark, and that girl not home," he cried, angrily, as he strode towards the front door.

"Do come and sit down," said Mrs Portlock. "She's all right I tell you. I'll be bound to say that some one has gone to meet her and see her home, and, look here, Joseph, don't be foolish when Mr Cyril comes, but make yourself pleasant to him for Sage's sake. She quite worships him, poor girl."

"Hah!" said the Churchwarden, with a grim smile upon his lip. "No one ever worshipped me," and he opened the front door.

"Now don't keep letting in the cold wind, Joseph," cried Mrs Portlock, and then, "Gracious! What's that?"

She heard the faint scream of some one at a distance, but almost as it reached her ears the Churchwarden had gone off at a heavy trot across the home field, in the direction from whence the sound had come, and he burst through the gate, to find Sage upon her knees, nursing Cyril Mallow's bleeding head, as the sound of steps was heard from the side lane.

"What's this? Who did this?" cried the Churchwarden. "Is he much hurt?"

"I--I don't know," faltered Sage. "Oh, uncle, uncle, is he killed?"

"Killed--no," said the Churchwarden, going down on one knee, "cut-- stunned. How was it--a fall?"

"No, uncle," sobbed Sage, who was now half beside herself with grief--"they--they fought."

"Who did? Who has been here?"

"Don't--don't ask me," she sobbed. "But I do ask you," cried the Churchwarden, sharply. "Why," he cried, struck as by a flash of inspiration, "Luke Ross has come down?"

"Yes," moaned Sage, with a sigh of misery.

"And he did this?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Humph! Then he's a plucked un!" muttered the Churchwarden, with a low whistle. "Well, anyhow we've got it over."

"Is--is he dead, uncle?" whispered Sage, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Dead--no. I tell you his head's too thick. Well, you've done it, young lady. There, I'll stop with him while you run up and tell Tom Loddon and Jack Rennie to bring the little stable door off the hinges.

We must get him up to the farm."