“Well,” said Erica, thoughtfully, “if any Christianity be true, it must be your loving belief, not the blood-thirsty scheme of the Calvinists. If THAT could by any possibility be true, I should greatly prefer, like Kingsley's dear old 'Wulf,' to share hell with my own people.”
The words had scarcely left her lips when, with a startled cry, she sprung to her feet and hurried to the door. The next moment Charles Osmond saw Tom pass the window; he was unmistakably the bearer of bad news.
His first panting words were reassuring “Brian says you are not to be frightened;” but they were evidently the mere repetition of a message. Tom himself was almost hopeless; his wrath and grief become more apparent every minute as he gave an incoherent account of the afternoon's work.
The brutes, the fiends, had half killed the chieftain, had set on him like so many tigers. Brian and Hazeldine were bringing him home had sent him on to prepare.
Erica had listened so far with a colorless face, and hands tightly clasped, but the word “prepare” seemed to bring new life to her. In an instant she was her strongest self.
“They will never try to take him up that steep narrow staircase. Quick, Tom! Help me to move this couch into the study.”
The little Irish servant was pressed into the service, too, and sent upstairs to fetch and carry, and in a very few minutes the preparations were complete, and Erica had at hand all the appliances most likely to be needed. Just as all was done, and she was beginning to feel that a minute's pause would be the “last straw,” Tom heard the sound of wheels in the square, and hurried out. Erica stood in the doorway watching, and presently saw a small crowd of helpers bearing a deathly looking burden. Whiteness of death redness of blood. The ground seemed rocking beneath her feet, when a strong hand took hers and drew her into the house.
“Don't be afraid,” said a voice, which she knew to be Brian's though a black mist would not let her see him. “He was conscious a minute ago; this is only from the pain of moving. Which room?”
“The study,” she replied, recovering herself. “Give me something to do, Brian, quickly.”
He saw that in doing lay her safety, and kept her fully employed, so much so, indeed, that from sheer lack of time she was able to stave off the faintness which had threatened to overpower her. After a time her father came to himself, and Erica's face, which had been the last in his mind in full consciousness, was the first which now presented itself to his awakening gaze. He smiled.