The upper part of this door was of glass, and she had suddenly perceived that a face was pressed close to the outer side.
“Who is it?” asked Clifford, as soon as he saw what had arrested her attention.
And without waiting for an answer, he sprang across the little room, toward the glass door. Nell sprang after him, and clutched at his sleeve.
“Never mind. Don’t go,” she whispered apprehensively. “It is only Jem Stickels. Don’t open the door.”
But as Clifford stopped, under the pressure of her earnest entreaty, the sound of a hoarsely uttered curse reached their ears; the face was quickly withdrawn, and the next moment, with a loud crash of broken glass, Jem’s fist came through the upper part of the door, and struck Clifford full in chest.
Nell saw, even before the blow was dealt, that there was an open knife in the fisherman’s hand. But, although she threw herself upon her lover, trying to drag him back from the danger, she was not in time. With a howl of savage delight, Jem drew back his knife, covered with blood.
CHAPTER XII.
Clifford was so entirely taken by surprise that he hardly realized, in the first moment, that he was hurt. The next, he dashed open the door at one blow, and finding Jem outside coolly wiping his knife on the ivy which grew on this side of the house, he seized the fisherman by the throat with one hand, snatched his knife from him and flung it away with the other, and then hurled the man from him with such violence that the latter fell, and, striking his head upon the stone-ledge of a window, lay motionless on the ground.
Then, suddenly overcome by a feeling of dizziness, the first result of his wound, Clifford staggered back against the broken door, and into Nell’s arms.
“Oh, it is my fault—my fault! I ought not to have asked you to come!” moaned she, not attempting now to hide her affectionate concern from the people who, startled by the noise of the affray, now pressed into the room.