"Law, no, sir! At the end of the six weeks he was on his legs, as strong as ever, and went back to London—or wherever it was he came from."
Robert Dalrymple drew a relieved breath. "I shall go in and hear what the surgeons say," said he, restlessly. "And you go round to the kitchen, Hardy, and tell them to give you some tea; or anything else you'd like."
Miss Lynn was in the oak-parlour alone, standing before the fire, when Robert entered.
"Oh, Robert," she said, "I wanted to see you. Do you fear this will be very bad?—very serious?"
"I don't know," was the desponding answer.
"Whose gun was it that did the mischief?"
"Whose gun! Have you not heard?" he broke forth, in tones of fierce self-reproach. "MINE, of course. And if he dies, I shall have murdered him."
Mary Lynn was used to Robert's heroics; but she looked terribly grieved now.
"I see what you think, Mary," he said, being in the mood to view all things in a gloomy light: "that you will be better without me than with me. Cancel our engagement, if you will. I cannot say that I do not deserve it."
"No, Robert, I was not thinking of that," she answered. Tears rose to her eyes, and glistened in the firelight. "I was wondering whether I could say or do anything to induce you to be less thoughtless; less——"