"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!"
The sound of that name was not louder than a breath of summer wind; but the girl heard it, and fell upon her face, prostrated by a great flood of thankfulness. She had not killed him; he was alive. He had spoken her name.