"Is--is there nothing?" she whispered.
Ruth could not answer. Her hand shook so fearfully, that its sense of touch was overwhelmed.
"Oh, speak to me!"
"Hush! I shake so! I shake so!"
Lady Rose bent her head and waited. At last a deep, long breath broke from Ruth, and a flash of fire shot from her eyes.
"Give me your hand; I dare not trust myself," she whispered.
Seizing the hand which lay helplessly in Lady Rose"s lap, she pressed it over the heart her own had been searching, and fixed her eager eyes on the lady"s face for an answer.
As a faint fire kindles slowly, that fair face brightened till it shone like a lily in the moonlight. As Ruth looked, she saw a scarcely perceptible smile stealing over it. Then the lips parted, and a heavy sigh broke through.
"Is it life?" whispered Ruth. "Tell me, is it life?"
Lady Rose withdrew her hand.
"Yes, faint. Oh! so faint, but life."
Then both these girls broke into a swift pa.s.sion of tears, and clung together, uttering soft, broken words of thanksgiving. Ruth was the first to start from this sweet trance of grat.i.tude.
"What can we do? He must be carried to the house. Ho, father! father!"
She ran up and down the path, crying out wildly, but no answer came.
The stillness struck her with new dread. Where was her father, that he could not hear her cries? Who had done this thing! Could it be he?
"No, no!--a thousand times, no! But then--"
She went back to Lady Rose, whose hand had nestled back to that poor, struggling heart.
"Couldn"t we carry him, you and I? We must have help," Ruth said, a little sharply, for the position of the lady stung her.
The question surprised Lady Rose; for never in her life had she been called upon to make an exertion. But she started to her feet and flung back the draperies from her arms.
"Yes, he might die here. Let us save him. "The Rest" is not so far off."
""The Rest?" No, no; our cottage is nearest. He might die before we could get him to "The Rest." My father will be there. Oh, I am sure my father will be there!"
Ruth spoke eagerly, as if some one had disputed her.
"He will be coming this way," she added, "and so help us. Come, come, let us try!"
Before the two girls could test their strength, footsteps were heard coming along the path.
"It is my father. Oh, now he can be carried to the cottage in safety."
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!"