“Murderer!”
“Let me go, woman!” he cried, excitedly, shoving past the governess, who threw her arms round him and tried to hold him back.
“She’s dying, perhaps! I’ll be too late! Curse you, let me go!”
“Help! Help! Murder!” she screamed. “You’re mad! Let me go at once or it will be the worse for you.” And he struggled with her to get away, while the air rung with her loud screams for help. At length he got one arm free, although she still clung with desperation to him. “Curse you!” he muttered, between his clenched teeth, raising his fist and dealing her a savage blow in the face. “You’ve brought it on yourself!”
Another half-uttered scream was checked on her lips, and she sank back in a heap on the ground, while Markworth rushed past her, and flew rather than ran down the heights.
In spite of lung logic, Clara Kingscott’s cries for help remained unheard. No one came to her assistance; and when she recovered her consciousness after the insensibility produced by Markworth’s blow, she found herself cold and alone, lying stretched out along the side of the narrow path where she had fallen. And he? Where was he?
Gone!
After one half-stupefied thought as to where she was, she recollected all, and nerved herself up to the determination of following Markworth to the death! The blood was still trickling down her face from the dastardly blow she had received: it animated her with additional strength and fresh courage; and she seemed like a tigress, and snarled, as it were, at the sight of her own blood!
Rising to her feet, she nearly stumbled at first from stiffness and faintness, but by force of will she quickly recovered her strength, and in a few moments felt better, and able to walk.
She had marked the spot where Susan had disappeared; thither she bent her steps, and gazed down into the deep descent, hidden now, and black with the dark veil of night.