“Not now.”
He raised his hand and struck her. It was not really a severe blow; but it was enough to throw the fragile little creature to the ground.
“You brute, you cruel, cowardly brute!” she cried, in a low, sobbing voice, looking up at him with passionate dark eyes full of hatred, from where she had fallen. “You may have killed your child!”—and her head fell back upon the floor at his feet, while he stood still in stupid, dumb bewilderment.
Only for a moment. The rough, drunken fellow was not heartless. When his dim, dazed eyes saw clearly the white, senseless face at his feet, and his dull ears began to admit a suggestion of her meaning, he flung himself down beside her and gathered the unconscious woman into his arms in a passion of loud, demonstrative remorse.
“I have killed her—I have killed her!” bemoaned to the group of frightened people from the drawing-room, billiard-room, and servants’-hall whom his cries brought quickly into the hall. “Heaven forgive me, she is dead! My poor, pretty little wife! Oh, I am a brute, a beast! Annie, Annie! She will never speak to me again!”—and the slight frame he held in his arms and pressed to his convulsed and swollen face shook with the violence of his sobs.
It was a genuine grief that prompted this outburst; but it was the grief, not of a man, but of a child who in a fit of thoughtless anger had taken the life of a pet dog or bird.
They took her from him with difficulty, assuring him that she had only fainted; and George and Wilfred led him away, while the women tried to restore her to consciousness. It was a long time before they succeeded; then Lady Braithwaite came into the billiard-room where the young men were.
“She must have a doctor. Somebody must ride to Beckham at once,” she said.
“I will!” cried Harry, jumping up.
“Nonsense; you are not sober enough,” said George curtly. He was bearing his share of remorse at the result of the day’s work.