HANK God!' was Count Litvinoff's inward ejaculation, as, followed by Roland, he sprang through the laurel bushes into the gravel path that skirted the lawn. For what he saw was not what he had feared to see. Clare was safe. She was standing on the last of the stone steps that led down from the verandah, her hands clasped over her eyes, as if to shut out some intolerable sight.
On the lawn before her, half-a-dozen yards off, in brown shooting suit and gaiters, lay her father, face downwards, on the grass, his gun beside him, and his two sporting dogs sniffing round the hand that had held it.
The two young men were at his side in an instant, and had half raised him by the time Clare had shaken off the horror that had paralysed her and had sprung towards them. Roland glanced at Mr Stanley's face, and, passing his arm round the old man's neck, drew his head towards him, and bent over it in such a manner as to keep it from her eyes.
'Take her in, Litvinoff,' he said, still bending forward; 'make her go in.'
'Come in, Miss Stanley; you can do no good here,' said Litvinoff, rising and taking the girl by the arm. She shook him off.
'Let me alone,' she cried. 'How dare you interfere? Let me go to my father.'
'Miss Stanley, be reasonable. You can do much more good in the house. Don't you know we must bring your father in?—and your mother must be told.'
But Mrs Stanley needed no telling. From the window she had seen—when the barking of the dogs told of Mr Stanley's near approach—how Clare had run out bareheaded to meet him—how he had stopped in the middle of the lawn, as if expecting her to come to him—how he had taken his gun from his shoulder, and dropped the butt on the ground—how there had been a flash, a report, and how he had fallen. Now she came out.