"Hush, child! Not a word! I--I will not hear a word. Never let that question pa.s.s your lips again so long as you live. I charge you--I charge you!"

The sick man fell back exhausted, and gasping for breath. The question put so naturally by his daughter seemed to have given him a dangerous shock.

"But how is he now?"

The question was asked in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, and more by the bright eyes than those trembling lips.

"I--I have not dared to ask. I--I could not leave you here alone,"

answered Ruth, with a fitful quiver of the lips.

"How long is it?"

"Two days, father."

"Two days, and no news of him."

"They would not keep it from us if he had been worse," said Ruth, who had listened with sickening dread to every footstep that approached the cottage during all that time, fearing the news she expected, and gathering hope because it did not come.

"Has Sir Noel been here?"

"He was here that night," answered Ruth, shuddering, as she thought of the awful scene, when her father was brought home so death-like.

"Not since? He knew that I was hurt, too."

"He has sent the doctors here."

"What news did they bring?"

"I--I did not dare to ask."

A look of deep compa.s.sion broke into those sunken eyes, and, turning on his pillow, the old man murmured in a painful whisper:

"Poor child! Poor child!"

Then Ruth fell to kissing his great hand again, murmuring:

"Oh, father! you are so good to me--so good!"

"I am weak--so weak," he answered, as if excusing something to himself. "But how could he--Well, well, when I am stronger--when I am stronger."

The cottage was small, and the jar of an opening door could be felt through the whole little building. Some one was trying at the latch then, and a step was heard in the pa.s.sage.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

"Go. It may be news," said the sick man.

Before Ruth could reach the door she met Richard Storms coming toward her father's room. His manner was less audacious than usual, and his face clouded.

"I have come to ask after your father," he said, with an anxious look, as if he expected some rebuff. "They say that he has been shot in the back by some lurking thief. Perhaps I could help ferret out who it is if the old man'll tell me all about it."

"Father is too ill for talking," answered Ruth, shrinking out of her visitor's path. "He must be kept quiet."

"Of course; but not from neighbors like us. The old man at the farm sent me over to hear all about it."

"There is nothing to hear. Everybody knows how my poor father was found bleeding in the park. He has been very ill since, and is only now coming to himself."

"Oh! ah! Then he has come to his senses. That was what we most wanted to know; for, of course, he can tell who shot him. I'll be sworn it is guessed at rightly enough. Still knowing is knowing."

As he spoke, Storms moved forward, as if determined to enter the sick man's chamber.

Ruth had no means of stopping him. She retreated backward, step by step, shrinking from his approach, but without the least power of resistance. When she reached the door, Storms put forth his hand and attempted to put her aside, not rudely; but she so loathed his touch, that a faint cry broke from hers.

A look of bitter malice broke over the young man's face as he bent it close to her.

"You didn't scream so when the young master took my place the night all this trouble came up. I could tell something of what chanced between your sweetheart and the old man, after he went out with my gun in his hand."

"You know--you can tell? You saw?" whispered the poor girl, rendered hoa.r.s.e by fear.

"Ah, that makes you whimper, does it? That starts the blood from your white face. Yes, I saw--I saw; and when the courts want to know what I saw they will hear about it. Kicked dogs bite now and then. So don't gather your comely little self into a heap, when I come by again, or my tongue may be loosened. I have kept it between my teeth till now, for the sake of old times, when you were ready to smile when I came and were sorry when I went."

"But we were children then."

"Yes; but when he came with his dainty wooing, some one forgot that she had ever been a child."

"No, no! As a playmate, I liked you. It was when--when--"

"When, having the feelings of a man, I spoke them out, and was treated like a dog. Do not think I will ever forget that. No, never--never, to my dying day."

"Why are you so harsh with me, Richard?" cried the poor girl, now thoroughly terrified. "I never in my whole life have done you harm."

The young man laughed a low, disagreeable laugh.

"Harm! Oh, no! Such milk-white doves as you never harm anything. They only fire a man's heart with love, then torment him with it, like witches--soft-spoken, smiling witches--that make us devils with their jibes, and idiots with their tears. Oh, I hardly know which is most enticing, love or hate, for such creatures."

"Don't! don't! You frighten me!" pleaded the girl.

"Aye, there it is. Faint at a plain word; but work out murder and bloodshed with the witchcraft of your false smiles and lying tears.

That is what you have done, Ruth Jessup."

"No! no!" cried the girl, putting up her hands.

"Who was it that set her own father and sweetheart at each other?"