He waited a second, and then bending quickly, he clasped both her hands and carried them to his lips.
"God help me," he said hoarsely, as he released them,—"God help both of us!"
With this he turned away, and opening the door, went out into the darkness.
Dorothy stood perfectly still, with her father staring perplexedly into her white face. It had all passed too quickly for him to interfere,—to speak, even, had he been so minded.
At the sound of the closing door John Devereux came again into the hall; and now the noise of horses' hoofs was heard, dying away outside.
"Dot—my child, what is it?" her father exclaimed, his heart stirred by a presentiment of some ill he could not define. And he moved toward the mute figure standing like a statue in the centre of the wide hall.
But John was there before him; and as he passed his arm around her, she started, and a dry, gasping breath broke from her lips,—one that might have been a sob, had there been any sign of tears in the wild eyes that seemed to hold no sight as they were turned to her brother's face.
"Dot—little sister," he cried, "tell me—what is the matter?"
And Mary, now close beside them, added quickly, "Tell him, Dot,—tell him now."
"Tell," Dorothy repeated mechanically, her voice sounding strained and husky. "Tell—tell him yourself, Mary. Tell him that—" And she fell, a dead weight, against her brother's breast.