A glance through the open door of the room showed him Barbara lying upon the floor, with the bedclothes half covering her as she lay. He was down beside her with a cold sweat of fear on him as the light from the lantern fell upon her face. A red scarf had been wound about her neck, and her two hands were still straining at it, pathetic in their impotence to let in life and breath. John Gore set the lantern down, caught her up and unwound the thing, cursing as he did so the marks where the white throat had been bruised by brutal hands. There was froth on her lips and dusky shadow covering her face, yet the lips were warm when he pressed his cheek to them, and, putting an ear to her bosom, he found that her heart still throbbed.
An inarticulate “Thank God!” came from him, but the cry of the moment was “Air! air!” Taking her in his arms, he bent for the lantern, and swinging it by the ring from one finger, he started down the stairs. He hardly heeded the two bodies lying there, save to step over them, and so, with all his manhood praying and striving for the life in her, he came out into the cold night air and the pale gleam of the moon.
Now John Gore remembered a trick that an old buccaneer surgeon had taught him at Port Royal—a trick that had saved men who had been cut down from the gallows or pulled out senseless from the sea. He laid Barbara on the wet grass that grew in the old hall, and, kneeling at her head, took her two arms at the wrists and began to move them gently from the shoulders, spreading them wide, and then crossing them with slight pressure upon her bosom. Nor did man ever thank God more than did John Gore when she began to breathe feebly of her own sweet self, and the rise and fall of her bosom showed that the tide of life had turned. He bent over her and wiped her lips, touched her bruised throat tenderly with his fingers, and then leaned back and looked at the moon, as though that broad, white, heavenly face could understand what all this meant to him.
He lifted her up again in his arms, and seeing a yellow glow beating along the passage that led from the hall into the kitchen, he made for it and found a huge fire blazing on the hearth, the light from it making the place far brighter than in the day. There was a rough sort of couch under the window, and John Gore laid Barbara upon it, and drew the thing up before the fire so that the warmth should hearten the life in her. And then, for the first time, he took notice of the swelter he himself was in, his shirt hanging open and showing his chest, blotches of crimson staining it, his very stockings soaked from the blood of the two dead creatures upon the stairs. A man in such a war tackle was not a savory thing to meet the eyes of a frightened girl.
John Gore bent over her a moment and saw a faint pink flush creeping into her cheeks, while her breath came and went steadily with a quiet sighing. There was an oak chest in the kitchen, and John Gore found some clothes in it: a rough shirt that had belonged to the dead man and some woollen hose. He went out into the yard where the dog was rattling his chain and making a great whimpering, as though calling for his supper, and, knowing that there was a pump by the stable, he stripped himself to the waist, washed, and put on clean gear. Then he unbarred the gate, and brought in his coat and riding-boots from under the thorn-tree, so that he should seem something of a gentleman, and not a ragged scoundrel hardly fit to touch a woman’s hand.
Barbara was still lying like one asleep before the fire when he returned, for she had been so near to death that life seemed to steal back softly and slowly as though still afraid. John Gore had never looked thus at his love before, as a man might look at a sleeping child or at some fair valley under a golden dawn. He saw the faint flush upon her cheeks, the shadowy sweep of the long lashes, the little dark curls of hair falling with such a sheen of sweetness over her forehead, the line of the red mouth, the soft warmth of her skin. She looked thin, poor child, frail and tragical, and yet the suffering that she had borne had shed a glamour over her that made her more lovable and more womanly than of old. His heart went out to her with all the awe of a man’s desire as he stood and watched the coming of life—and love.
There was a fluttering of the shadowy lashes, a long-drawn breath, a movement of the hands, and then the low cry of one waking to some revolting memory. John Gore bent over her and took her hands in his.
“There is nothing to fear, dear heart.”
A shudder ran through her as she looked at him, and some moments passed before light and understanding swept the shadows from her eyes. But the look that came into them when her soul awoke made John Gore long to take her in his arms and to hold her close to him, so that he could feel the beating of her heart.
“John—is it you?”