It was from him that she learned the whole story and fairly trembling with indignation, turned upon him.
"There isn't one of you in this whole village worthy to touch even the hand of the boy you have killed to-day. He was a man—you are nothing but brutes. Now go, and never let me see your face again."
The doctor met her at the door of Tony's little house. "You'd better stay with him," he said in a low tone. "He can't last until morning, and your brother will be perfectly safe with the nurse. I'll go up to your house and send down anything you may need. My man will come and stay within call."
Miss Atherton gave him a note to the nurse, and then went in to Tony. His eyes brightened at the sight of her, and he tried to speak.
"Hush, dear," she said, "it's all right. The doctor came just after you left, and my brother is in no danger now. I've come to stay with you."
Her cool hand brushed back the hair from his forehead, and moved by an impulse of womanly pity, she knelt beside him and laid her cheek against his own. He closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.
Her eyes wandered around the little room. A table stood in the corner of it. A cabinet photograph of herself in a pasteboard frame, around which Tony had painted a wreath of pond-lilies, stood in the centre of it beside a cracked cup filled with early autumn flowers. The flute lay straight across the front, like a votive offering, and underneath the photograph was written in his large, unformed hand: "My Guenevere."
At last she understood, and feeling that his little shrine was too holy for even her eyes to see, she turned them away.
Tony stirred, and she slipped her arm under his shoulders.
"Miss Atherton?"