“You are not going to leave that crazy girl, are you? She will shoot me again,” he said, looking at Bessie.
“Bessie, will you come with me?” said Blanche.
“Indeed, I will not! You can just leave me with my darling. Oh, I knew he would come some day. What made you wait so long? Why didn’t you come and see—oh, well, never mind about that, you can never, never see it.”
“Bessie, will you come with me?”
“No, Miss Robin, I won’t—go on,” said Bessie, with a fierce look in her eyes.
Blanche knew that to urge Bessie would be useless, so she hurried away, although she feared that Bessie would repeat the action of a few moments before; but there was nothing to do but to leave her and trust to the result. Her first act was to find Ross and make him acquainted with the affair, and ask his assistance in removing him to her house. Mrs. Morris said that she “wan’t no coward, but she guessed she’d go up to t’other house, if Eliza and Eunice would take her place,” which they willingly consented to do.
The wounded man was carried to the old house and placed in a comfortable bed and a physician sent for. Ross stood for a moment looking at the wounded man, and then his own face became colorless and his lips white and trembling.
“My God!” he said. “It is—it is her betrayer. Bessie, poor Bessie! You have saved me the deed that I swore to perform.”
Bessie had followed closely behind Ross, and going toward him she said: