Why ask? She knew! And only just now, a few short minutes ago—no, no, a lifetime ago—she had told him she did not love him.
“An accident, Marjorie.” Lady Linden’s voice was harsh, unlike her usual round tones. “An accident—that brute of a horse—girl, don’t, don’t faint.”
“I am not going to. I want to help—him.”
They had brought Tom Arundel into the house, had laid him on a bed in an upper room. The village doctor had come, and, finding something here beyond his skill, had sent off, with Lady Linden’s full approval, an urgent message to a surgeon of repute, and now they were waiting—waiting the issues of life and death.
The servants looked at the white-faced, distraught girl pityingly. They remembered that she was to have been the dying man’s wife. The whole thing had been so sudden, was so shocking and tragic. No wonder that she looked like death herself; they could not guess at the self-reproach, the self-denunciation, nor could Lady Linden.
“No one,” said her ladyship, “is to blame but me. It was my doing, my own pig-headed folly. The boy told me that the horse was a brute, and I—I said that he—if he hadn’t the pluck to try and break him in—I would find someone who would. I am his murderess!” her ladyship cried tragically. “Yes, Marjorie, look at me—look at the murderess of the man you love!”
“Aunt!”
“It is true. Revile me! I alone am guilty. I’ve robbed you of your lover.” Lady Linden was nearer to hysterics at this moment than ever in her life.
“How long? how long?” she demanded impatiently. “How long will it be before that fool comes?”
The fool was the celebrated surgeon wired for to London. He had wired back that he was on his way; no man could do more.