“God forgive me!” sobbed Mrs. Tanberry. “I was sitting in the library, and Mamie had just come from you, when we heard Mr. Carewe shout from the cupola room: 'Stand away from my daughter, Vanrevel, and take this like a dog!' Only that;—and Mamie and I ran to the window, and we saw through the dusk a man in uniform leap back from Miss Betty—they were in that little open space near the hedge. He called out something and waved his hand, but the shot came at the same time, and he fell. Even then I was sure, in spite of what Mamie had said, I was as sure as Robert Carewe was, that it was you. He came and took one look—and saw—and then Nelson brought the horses and made him mount and go. Mamie ran for the doctor, and Betty and I carried Crailey in. It was hard work.”
Miss Betty's hand had fallen from Crailey's breast where Tom's took its place. She rose unsteadily to her feet and pushed back the hair from her forehead, shivering convulsively as she looked down at the motionless figure on the sofa.
“Crailey!” said Tom, in the same angry, shaking voice. “Crailey, you've got to rouse yourself! This won't do; you've got to be a man! Crailey!” He was trying to force the brandy through the tightly clenched teeth. “Crailey!”
“Crailey!” whispered Miss Betty, leaning heavily on the back of a chair. “Crailey?” She looked at Mrs. Tanberry with vague interrogation, but Mrs. Tanberry did not understand.
“Crailey!”
It was then that Crailey's eyelids fluttered and slowly opened; and his wandering glance, dull at first, slowly grew clear and twinkling as it rested on the ashy, stricken face of his best friend.
“Tom,” he said, feebly, “it was worth the price, to wear your clothes just once!”
And then, at last, Miss Betty saw and understood. For not the honest gentleman, whom everyone except Robert Carewe held in esteem and af-fection, not her father's enemy, Vanrevel, lay before her with the death-wound in his breast for her sake, but that other—Crailey Gray, the ne'er-do-weel and light-o'-love, Crailey Gray, wit, poet, and scapegrace, the well-beloved town scamp.
He saw that she knew, and, as his brightening eyes wandered up to her, he smiled faintly. “Even a bad dog likes to have his day,” he whispered.