Henderson stood listening, spellbound with fear and horror. Great drops of moisture fell from his forehead, his very hair seemed to bristle with affright. Then after a time of unbroken silence, he slightly recovered himself. He sought for, and found, the revolver he had laid on the grass. This he flung down the ravine after the dead woman, and having done this he turned and fled from the spot with the black curse of murder on his soul.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DEW ON THE GRASS.
When people have been very happy one day, they naturally wish to be happy another. John Temple and May Churchill had been very happy collecting the ferns in the Dene, and before they parted John expressed a wish that this pleasure might be repeated.
“We have had a charming afternoon, have we not, Miss Churchill?” he said, when May stopped at a short distance from her home and suggested that here they had better part.
“Yes, I think we have,” answered May, half-demurely, half-coquettishly.
“I don’t think, I’m sure,” smiled John. “And an idea has just struck me, how lovely that place, Fern Dene, would be in the early morning, when the dew is on the grass?”
“How romantic you are, Mr. Temple!”
“I was, but the weight of my years has crushed it all out of me.”
“You do not look very old. How old are you, really?”