The man was impressed, in spite of himself, by her manner.
“He’s dead,” he said impatiently. “Haven’t you had enough corpses about the place lately?”
“He is not dead; he is moving; and you will take him in, dead or alive. Do you forget I am your master’s daughter?”
“Perhaps I’m my master’s master,” said he shortly. Then, with a sudden access of fury, to which his potations of earlier in the evening evidently gave reckless intensity, he suddenly held up, with a threatening movement, the knife with which he had stabbed his victim. It was red with blood—a sickening sight. But Freda was too much excited and exasperated to show a sign of fear now.
“You dare not hurt me,” she cried, in her high, girlish voice, that echoed among the cliffs. “If this poor man dies you may escape; but if you kill me, my father will not let you live another day.”
She thought it was her words which suddenly caused him to drop from a defiant into a cringing attitude, and to hold himself quite limply and meekly under her grasp. But his shifting glances made her turn her head, and she saw that her father was standing behind, with his eyes fixed on the fallen man. Freda forgot her reticence, forgot his cautions. Rushing towards him with her left hand outstretched, she cried, with a break in her voice:
“Father! father!”
He did not rebuke her. Taking a step forward, he caught the girl in his arms, and looked tenderly down into her white face.
“What business have you here?” he said, but without harshness.
“I came to save John Thurley,” she answered, trembling. “But I was too late. Make this man take him home—father—to the Abbey.”