“He might have helped us more if he had run there himself,” cried Juanita. “There will be time lost in waking the men, and saddling a horse. I could go there faster.”
She looked at the door as if she had half resolved to rush off to the village in her dressing-gown and slippers. And then she looked again at that marble face, and again fell upon her knees by the sofa, and laid her cheek against that bloodless cheek, and moaned and cried over him; while the butler went to get brandy, with but little hope in his own mind of any useful result.
“What an end to a honeymoon!” he said to himself despondently.
CHAPTER VI.
“Is not short payne well borne that bringes long ease,
And layes the soule to sleepe in quiet grave?
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life....”
The morning dawned upon a weeping household. There was nothing to be done when Mr. Dolby, the village surgeon, arrived at Cheriton House. He could only examine the death-wound and express his opinion as to its character.
“It was certainly not self-inflicted,” he told the servants, as they stood about him in a stony group.