“Yes, and something worse,” answered John Temple, fiercely; “because this young lady rejected your insolent advances—advances which were an insult to her from a man like you; a man who had betrayed and broken another woman’s heart, and then, as I believe there is a God above us, murdered her—!”
For an instant Henderson turned ghastly pale, as this terrible accusation reached his ears, and then, with a scream of rage, he sprang forward and struck John Temple a violent blow on the chest. But he had met his match. For the next moment a swift, hammer-like thud from John’s clenched fist hit his brow, and he reeled back, and striking his head as he did so against the sharp corner of the writing table, he fell heavily on the floor.
Mrs. Temple gave a cry, and both Mr. Temple and Mr. Churchill ran forward to his assistance. They lifted up his head, but he was seemingly unconscious, and a sudden fear darted into the squire’s heart.
“He—is not dead,” he said, falteringly.
“What matter if he is?” said John Temple, still fiercely; and then without another word he turned and left the room, while the others raised Henderson on a couch, and Mrs. Temple violently rang the bell for further help.
In the meantime John Temple had gone to his own rooms, and for a moment stood there, panting still from his recent encounter, thinking how he should act. But his hesitation was very brief. He would go to May; in her hands alone now lay the course of their future lives.
“If she loves me as I love her, we shall not part,” he thought; “the world is wide.”
This was his decision, and he quickly acted on it. He pulled out a portmanteau, and was thrusting into it some things that he would require, when a rap sounded at his sitting-room door, and the next moment Mrs. Temple, pale and excited, entered the room.
In a second she saw the preparations for his departure.
“You are going away?” she said, quickly.