"It was you!" I cried, kneeling beside him, "it was your hand that shot
Sir Maurice Vibart?"
"Yes," he answered, his voice growing very gentle as he went on, "for Angela's sake—my dead wife," and, fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a woman's small, lace-edged handkerchief, and I saw that it was thickened and black with blood. "This was hers," he continued, "in her hand, the night she died—I had meant to lay it on her grave—the blood of atonement—but now—"
A sudden crash in the hedge above; a figure silhouetted against the sky; a shadowy arm, that, falling, struck the moon out of heaven, and, in the darkness, I was down upon my knees, and fingers were upon my throat.
"Oh, Darby!" cried a voice, "I've got him—this way—quick—oh, Darb—" My fist drove into his ribs; I struggled up under a rain of blows, and we struck and swayed and staggered and struck—trampling the groaning wretch who lay dying in the ditch. And before me was the pale oval of a face, and I smote it twice with my pistol-butt, and it was gone, and I—was running along the road.
"Charmian spoke truth! O God, I thank thee!"
I burst through a hedge, running on, and on—careless alike of being seen, of capture or escape, of prison or freedom, for in my heart was a great joy.
I was conscious of shouts and cries, but I heeded them no more, listening only to the song of happiness my heart was singing:
"Charmian spoke truth, her hands are clean. O God, I thank thee!"
And, as I went, I presently espied a caravan, and before it a fire of sticks, above which a man was bending, who, raising his head, stared at me as I approached. He was a strange-looking man, who glared at me with one eye and leered jocosely with the other; and, being spent and short of breath, I stopped, and wiping the sweat from my eyes I saw that it was blood.
"How—is Lewis?" I panted.