She gave a timid rat-tat at the door, and after a moment or two it was opened by Ruth.

"Why, Miss Dorothy!" And Ruth started back in surprise.

"Is your brother at home?" Dorothy questioned, with a little gasp.

"Why, yes. Won't you come in?"

"Would you mind asking him to come to the door. I have only a moment or two to spare."

"You had better come into the pa.s.sage," Ruth said, "and I will go at once and tell him you are here."

Dorothy stepped over the threshold and stood under the small lamp that lighted the tiny hall.

In a few moments Ralph stood before her, his cheeks flushed, and an eager, questioning light in his eyes.

She looked at him eagerly for a moment before she spoke, and could not help thinking how handsome he looked.

"I have come on a strange errand," she said, speaking rapidly, "and I fear there is more trouble in store for you. But tell me first, have you ever lifted a finger against my father?"

"Never, Miss Dorothy! Why do you ask?"

"And you have never planned, or purposed, or attempted to do him harm?"

"Why, no, Miss Dorothy. Why should you think of such a thing?"

"My father was shot this afternoon in Treliskey Plantation. He saw a face for a moment peering over a hedge; the next moment there was a flash and a report, and a part of the charge entered his left arm and shoulder. He is in bed now, and Mr. Tregonning is taking his depositions. He vows that it was your face that he saw peering over the hedge--that it was you who shot him."

Ralph's face grew ashen while she was speaking, and a look almost of terror crept into his eyes. The difficulty and peril of his position revealed themselves in a moment. How could he prove that Sir John Hamblyn was mistaken?

"But you do not believe it, Miss Dorothy?" he questioned.

"You tell me that you are innocent?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"I am as innocent as you are," he said; and he looked frankly and appealingly into her eyes.

For a moment or two she looked at him in silence, then she said in the same low tone--

"I believe you." And she held out her hand to him, and then turned towards the door.

He had a hundred things to say to her, but somehow the words would not come. He watched her cross the threshold and pa.s.s out into the darkness, and he stood still and had not the courage to follow her. It would have been at least a neighbourly thing to see her to the lodge gates, for the night was unillumined by even a star, but his lips refused to move. He stood stock-still, as if riveted to the ground.

How long he remained there staring into the darkness he did not know.

Time and place were swallowed up and lost. He was conscious only of the steady approach of an overwhelming calamity. It was gathering from every point of the compa.s.s at the same time. It was wrapping him round like a sable pall. It was obliterating one by one every star of hope and promise.

Ruth came to look for him at length, and she uttered a little cry when she saw him, for his face was like the face of the dead.

CHAPTER XIV

THE STORM BURSTS

"Why, Ralph, what is the matter?" And Ruth seized one of his hands and stared eagerly and appealingly into his face.

He shook himself as if he had been asleep, then closed the door quietly and followed her into the living-room.

"Are you not well, Ralph?" Ruth persisted, as she drew up his chair a little nearer the fire. Mrs. Penlogan laid her knitting in her lap, and her eyes echoed Ruth's inquiry.

"I've heard some bad news," he said, speaking with an effort, and he dropped into his chair and stared at the fire.

"Bad news!" both women echoed. "What has happened, Ralph?"

He hesitated for a moment, then he told them the story as Dorothy had told it to him.

"But why should you worry?" Ruth questioned quickly. "You were nowhere near the plantation."

"But how am I to prove it?" he questioned.

"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"

"Absolutely."

"But you have surely seen someone?"

"As bad luck would have it, I have not seen a soul."

"But some people may have seen you."

"That is likely enough. Twenty people in the village looking from behind their curtains may have seen me walk out with a gun under my arm."

"And it's the first time you've carried a gun since we left Hillside."

"The very first time, and it looks as if it will be the last."

"But surely, Ralph, no one would believe for a moment that you could do such a thing?" his mother interposed. "It's been some awkward accident, you may depend. It will all come out right in the morning."

"I'm very sorry for you, mother," he said slowly. "You've had trouble enough lately, G.o.d knows. We all have, for that matter. But it is of no use shutting our eyes to the fact that this is a very awkward business, and while we should hope for the best, we should prepare for the worst."

"What worst do you refer to, Ralph?" she asked, a little querulously.

"You surely do not think----"

"I hardly know what to think, mother," he interrupted, for it was quite clear she did not realise yet the gravity of the situation. "It may mean imprisonment and the loss of my good name, which would mean the loss of everything and the end of the world for me."

"Oh no; surely not," and the tears began to gather in her eyes.

"The trouble lies here," he went on. "Everybody knows that I hate the squire. We all do, for that matter, and for very good reasons. As it happens, I have been out with a gun this afternoon, and have brought home a couple of rabbits. I shot them in Dingley Bottom, but no one saw me. Somebody trespa.s.sing in the plantation came upon the squire. He was climbing over a hedge, and very likely in drawing back suddenly something caught the trigger and the gun went off. Now unless that man confesses, what is to become of me?"