“Oh, Ralph is very well, I think, and desired to be remembered to you. But he works too hard, I tell him; he is rising rapidly at the bar, and has more briefs offered to him than he can possibly accept. And I believe he is going to try to get into Parliament at the next election.”
“I am very glad,” said May, quietly. But she sighed softly as she turned away. She was thinking of Ralph Webster, and her great debt to him which she could never pay.
But a day or two after Miss Webster’s arrival at the Hall, something so terrible occurred that for many weeks May’s life was as a bewildered dream. It happened so suddenly that the blow fell with crushing force, and it was well for May that she had by her side one so sincere and faithful as her old friend.
They had all lunched together, and John Temple had been in one of his brightest moods. He was going to ride after lunch, and when his horse came round May followed him into the hall to see him mount. And as she stood there—looking a little wan perhaps, but with her sweet, serene face raised to his—a sudden impulse of affection induced John Temple to stoop down and kiss her.
“Take care of yourself, little woman,” he said; “I’m so glad you have Miss Webster with you.”
May smiled, and thus they parted. She was feeling a little tired, and Miss Webster therefore advised her to go to her room and lie down, and in a little while she fell into a placid sleep.
In the meantime John Temple was riding quietly along the country lanes, with the hedge-rows on either side green with the hues of the spring-time. And for no particular purpose, when he reached the outskirts of Henley Wood he turned his horse toward the road through it, admiring placidly as he went the trees just budding into leafage.
It was a peaceful scene, and there was no disturbing element in John Temple’s mind, when suddenly there sprang from behind the trunk of one of the great oaks the figure of a man.
John turned his head to look at this man, and in a moment recognized him. It was Tom Henderson of Stourton Grange, but a terrible change had passed over the young man’s face; and in an instant it flashed across John’s mind that he had heard that Tom Henderson had been, or was, mad.
And he could not doubt this now. Henderson stood straight before him on the roadway, brandishing a huge, heavy, oaken bludgeon, which he had probably cut from one of the neighboring trees. And as John Temple approached nearer, with a frightful yell he sprang forward toward him, and struck a severe blow on the head of John’s horse.