"No sudden 'orror at all, marm," said Noah Gawthrop, as he tightened his waist-belt, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and looked everywhere about to spit, but, being in the cabin, restrained the impulse; "we've known o' the rig they were goin' to run this long time past."
"And Hawkshaw?" asked Ethel, shuddering.
"Is a leader among them," replied Morley, applying a handkerchief to his bleeding lip. "I never had a better opportunity for clearing off old scores than to-night, but somehow he never——"
"Oh, Morley, dear! leave vengeance to other hands," said Ethel, imploringly. "Dear, dear papa," she added, laying her pale brow on Mr. Basset's cheek, "and so it was this knowledge—this horrible dread hanging over you—that has given such a mournful tenderness to your voice and manner for some time past."
Her voice, so mellow and thrilling, pierced poor Basset's heart: he could only answer by his tears.
"Oh, Morley, love!" said Ethel, in a low, beseeching voice, "say something to comfort poor papa."
But Morley could only press Mr. Basset's hand in silence, for, in fact, the poor fellow knew not what to say. Rose had tied her little handkerchief round the doctor's head, and it seemed a more agreeable remedy than the piece of court-plaster he had hastily stuck on his scar.
To Ethel the watchful, mysterious, solicitous, and almost sorrowful regard which her father had so long exhibited towards herself and Rose was quite accounted for now.
"Oh, my poor papa—my own papa!" she exclaimed, as she threw her arms round his neck, and nestled with her lovely face close to his, "I have no fear of death; I would face it courageously—but you, and Rose, and Morley. Oh, I fear that the blow which kills me may kill you all, too, you love me so much—so much more than I have deserved, dear papa!"
"Alas, Ethel! it is not death only that I fear for you, my sweet and innocent lamb—and Rose——"