He had looked for him to be the prop of his feeble, advancing years, and to carry on the honest name to posterity, but all in a moment these cherished hopes were blasted forever.
There at his feet lay his last male descendant, slain by the hand of the enemy of his house.
One long, piercing cry came from his quavering lips, and then his stern manhood quickly reasserted itself, and his blood leaped again through his veins with the fire of youth.
Rising quickly to his feet, he pointed with abhorrence at the young doctor’s body where it lay with its feet to Terry’s, as they had fallen apart, sinking with their mortal wounds.
His eyes gleamed with anger and his voice was tense with rage as he shouted hoarsely:
“Send for them to take it away before I drag the dastard out with my own hands and spurn his body into the road.”
“Come away, sir, into your own room, and the body shall be removed directly,” one of the young men said, leading him gently away.
Meanwhile Miss Tabitha, even in that tragic moment, could not forget that shocking dishabille of poor, distracted Eva, and, pushing her behind a screen, she began to help her to huddle on her clothes.
“A pretty sight you look, Eva Somerville, and all these men about, and more coming, for o’ course the crowner will be here directly to sit on the corpses! Here, pull on your stockings an’ shoes! You can’t? Lawk a-massy, stick out your foot an’ I’ll help you. There, now, stand up an’ let me get your clo’es on! Why, you can’t help yourself no more than a baby. An’ I vow to gracious I wouldn’t tech you with a ten-foot pole only to make you look decent before us other decent females. I never did take to you, Eva Somerville, an’ I never expected no good of you! Set down there, now, in that cheer, and don’t go to swooning, as I see you’re like to do.”
She snatched a glass of water and flung it square in the girl’s face, bringing her back to consciousness with a strangling gasp.