Part 55 (2/2)

”She is with Jasper, of course.”

”But suppose she is not, mother?”

”I do not suppose what is not the case, Audrey. She is beyond doubt with that pernicious woman, and as far as I am concerned I wash my hands of her.”

”And-the disgrace to-morrow?” said poor Audrey.

”My darling, you at least shall not be subjected to it. If I could find Evelyn I would take her myself to the school, and make her stand up before the scholars and tell them all that she had done; or if she refused I would tell for her. But as she is not here you are not going to be disgraced, my precious. I shall write a line to Miss Henderson telling her that the guilty party has flown, and that you are far too distressed to go to school; and I shall beg her to take any steps she thinks best. Really and truly that girl has made the place too hot to live in; I shall ask your father to take us abroad for the winter.”

”But surely, mother, you will not allow poor little Evelyn to get quite lost; you will try to find her?”

”Oh, my dear! have I not been trying? Do not say any more to me about her to-night. I am really so irritated that I may say something I shall be sorry for afterwards.”

So Audrey went to bed, and being young, she soon dropped asleep. Lady Frances, being dead tired, also slept; and the Squire, who knew nothing of all the fuss and trouble, came in at an early hour in the morning.

He lay down to sleep, and awoke after a short slumber. He then got up, dressed, and went into his grounds.

Lady Frances and Audrey were at breakfast-Lady Frances very pale, and Audrey with traces of her violent weeping the night before still on her face-when a servant burst in great terror and excitement into the room.

”Oh, your ladys.h.i.+p,” he exclaimed, ”the Squire is lying in the copse badly shot with his own gun! One of the grooms is with him, and Jones has gone for the doctor, and I came at once to tell your ladys.h.i.+p.”

Poor Lady Frances in her agony scarcely knew what she was doing. Audrey asked a frenzied question, and soon the two were bending over the stricken man. The Squire was shot badly in the side. A new fowling-piece lay a yard or two away.

”How did it happen?” said Lady Frances. ”What can it mean?”

Audrey knelt by her father, took his icy-cold hand in hers, and held it to her lips. Was he dead?

As he lay there the young girl for the first time in all her life learned how pa.s.sionately, how dearly she loved him. What would life be without him? In some ways she was nearer to her mother than to her father, but just now, as he lay looking like death itself, he was all in all to her.

”Oh, when will the doctor come?” said Lady Frances, raising her haggard face. ”Oh, he is bleeding to death-he is bleeding to death!”

With all her knowledge-and it was considerable-with all her common-sense, on which she prided herself, Lady Frances knew very little about illness and still less about wounds. She did not know how to stop the bleeding, and it was well the doctor, a bright-faced young man from the neighboring village, was soon on the spot. He examined the wounds, looked at the gun, did what was necessary to stop the immediate bleeding, and soon the Squire was carried on a hastily improvised litter back to his stately home.

An hour ago in the prime of life, in the prime of strength; now, for all his terrified wife and daughter could know, he was already in the shadow of death.

”Will he die, doctor?” asked Audrey.

The young doctor looked at her pitifully.

”I cannot tell,” he replied; ”it depends upon how far the bullet has penetrated. It is unfortunate that he should have been shot in such a dangerous part of the body. How did it happen?”

A groom now came up and told a hasty tale.

”The Squire called me this morning,” he said, ”and told me to go into his study and bring him out his new fowling-piece, which had been sent from London a few days ago. I brought it just as it was. He took it without noticing it much. I was about to turn round and say to him, 'It is at full c.o.c.k-perhaps you don't know, sir,' but I thought, of course, he had loaded it and prepared it himself; and the next minute he was climbing a hedge. I heard a report, and he was lying just where you found him.”

The question which immediately followed this recital was, ”Who had loaded the gun?”

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