“I have done my duty,” he murmured, as he raised her tenderly in his arms and kissed, again and again, her damp cheek and forehead, “she would not leave me—God is my witness there. Dear Mabel! my own sweet wife! hark how I unsay those cruel words.”
She replied not, but raised her eyes to his, and in that one look of unutterable affection he read how futile had been his effort, how mighty a thing is love.
A bell rang below, and at the same moment a footstep was heard in the passage, and a child sprung into the room, and to Mabel’s side.
“I must go,” said Clifdon, starting. “Lock the door, and remain here until I return to take you home. Phil, stay with your mother.”
“Let me go,” said the boy, pressing to his side, and playing with the silver fringe of his tunic. “Let me see you ride White Fleeta once more around the ring—only once. Ah, mamma, it is so beautiful!”
“No, no!” said Clifdon, impatiently. “It is no place for you. Come, come, I must go.”
“Bring me down, then, where Mark is on the swing,” persisted the little one, coaxingly. “Let me see Mark swing.”
A dark cloud swept over his father’s face, and extricating his dress with a smothered imprecation, he turned toward the door.
“Lend me your knife, then,” said Philip, springing forward and again grasping his dress; and throwing it hastily to the petitioner, Clifdon hurried down stairs.
He flung open the door of an apartment in the lower passage, and striding through without a glance at the gayly-bedizened throng there assembled, led forward a powerful white mare that stood saddled and bridled, and appeared to busy himself with its glittering trappings.