“They are both all right, thank God!” he announced. “The doctor says Mrs. Dwight has had a frightful shock but will pull through. Carson was right; his wound was only a scratch caused by the grazing bullet. But God knows it was a close call, and I think there is but one man in the State low enough to have fired the shot.”
When Keith and Sanders had left her, Helen went with dragging, listless feet up the stairs to her room.
Lighting her lamp, she stood looking at her image in the mirror on her bureau. How strangely drawn and grave her features appeared! It seemed to her that she looked older and more serious than she had ever looked in her life.
Dropping her glance to her hands, she noted something that sent a thrill through her from head to foot. It was a purple smudge left on her fingers by their contact with Carson Dwight's wound. Stepping across to her wash-stand, she poured some water into the basin, and was on the point of removing the stain when she paused and impulsively raised it towards her lips. She stopped again, and stood with her hand poised in mid-air. Then a thought flashed into her brain. She was recalling the contents of the fatal letter of Carson's to her poor brother; the hot blood surged over her. She shuddered, dipped her hands, and began to lave them in the cooling water. Carson was noble; he was brave; he had a great and beautiful soul, and yet he had written that letter to her dead brother. Yes, she had openly encouraged Sanders, and she must be honorable. At any rate, he was a good, clean man and his happiness was at stake. Yes, she supposed she would finally marry him. She would marry him.
CHAPTER XXI.
