Only for a moment did Miss Diana Trevlyn lose her self-possession. She raised her hands to still the awestruck terror around her, and glanced at Mrs. Chattaway's blanched face. "Hatch, where did you hear this?"
"In the sheep-pen, ma'am. The men be a-talking on't. They say he was killed last night—murdered."
Her own face for once in her life was turning white. "Be still, all of you, and remain here," she said. "Edith, if ever you had need of self-command, it is now."
She went straight off to the sheep-pen, bidding Hatch follow her. From the first moment Hatch had spoken, there had risen up before her, as an ugly picture—a dream to be shunned—the scratched and bruised face of Mr. Chattaway.
The sheep-pen was empty: the men had dispersed. Cris came out of the stables, and she signed to him. He advanced to meet her. "Where is your father?" she asked.
"Off to Barbrook," returned Cris. "Sam wasn't long getting his horse ready, was he? He has gone to order Bowen to look after Mr. Jim Sanders."
"Have you heard this report about Rupert?" she resumed, her hushed tones imparting to Cris a vague sense of something unpleasant.
"I have not heard any report about him. What is the report? That he's dead?"
"Yes; that he is dead."
Cris had spoken in a half-jesting, half-sneering tone; but his face changed at the answer, consternation in every feature, "What on earth do you mean, Aunt Diana? Rupert——"