“I will answer you nothing!” murmured Isabel, still facing her husband as she moved round into the garden driveway.  “Arthur Winslow, it is you who are on trial, not I!”

“I on trial!  God, listen to that!”

He sprang after her, gripped her shoulders, and hung over her, snarling, “You two-faced runaway! what have I done but suffer?”

She kept the lantern hid.  “What have you done?  Oh, my husband, will you hear if I tell you?  You have hung the fates of all of us, living or yet to live, on one thread,-please, dear, don’t bear so heavily on me,-on one poor thread which the jar of another misstep will surely break.  Oh, let us not make it!  Come, Arthur,-my husband,-into the house; maybe we can yet save ourselves and our dear ones!  Arthur, you’re hurting me dreadfully.  If you press me down that way, you’ll force me to my knees.”

Still she spoke in undertone, and still she muffled the light, while steadily the weight of his arms increased.  Suddenly he crowded her to the earth.  “Arthur,” she murmured, “Arthur, what are you going to do?  Don’t kill me here and now, Arthur; wait till to-morrow.  I have that to pass through to-night which may end my life peaceably in bed; and if it should, then there will be no infamy on any of us,-on you or our child, living, or on me, dead; and Godfrey, and Ruth, and mother, and all can be”-

“Give me that lantern!” He held her with one hand, snatched the light from cover, and thrust it into her face.  “So this is what you signal him with, is it?”

“Oh no, no!  Arthur, dear, no!  Before God’s throne, no!”

He lifted it as high as his arm would go, and with all his force swung it down, crashing and quenched, upon her head.

She gave a gentle sigh and rolled at his feet.  Groaning with horror and fright, he lifted her in his arms and bore her to her room and bed.

There she presently opened her eyes to find him laving her face and head, moaning, covering them with kisses, and imploring her forgiveness in a thousand hysterical repetitions.

“Hush, dear,” she whispered.  “I see how it all happened.  Does anybody know?  Oh, God be thanked! don’t let any one find out!  It was all a misunderstanding.  So many things crowded together to mislead you!”

“Oh yes, so many, many things at once, my treasure!  Oh yes, yes!”

“Call Sarah, will you, dear?”

“Oh, beloved, why should I?  You don’t need Sarah for anything.”

“Yes, I need her.  I must send her for mother-and Ruth-I promised Ruth; and you must send Giles for the doctor; my hour is come.”

In the Byington house Ruth and her brother met at the foot of the stairs.

“Leonard,” she whispered, “what is it?  Is father ill?  Leonard!  Oh, what have you seen?”

“Let me pass! quick!” He would have pressed her aside, but she laid hands on him.

“What has Arthur done?” she asked.  “What is he doing?”

“Ruth!  Ruth! he is putting her out of his own gate!” The brother extended both hands to turn the sister from his path, but she twined her arms on his.

“Leonard!  Leonard! for the love of heaven, let him do it!  She has only to go to her mother; let her go!  It’s the last hope.  But she’d better be dead, and she’d a hundred times rather be dead, than that Leonard Byington should be her rescuer!  Come in here a minute.”

Slipping both hands into his she drew him into the lighted room, adding as they went, “In a few minutes I can make some errand to her and find how matters stand”-

They stumbled over a disordered rug.  She fell into a chair; he sank to his knees, and with his face in her hands he moaned, “Oh, Ruth!  Oh, Ruth! it’s my fault after all!  I should have gone away at the beginning!”

Ruth and Arthur met face to face in the Winslow garden.  “I was just coming for you,” he said, excitedly.

“For Isabel?”

“Yes, her mother is with her, and”-a sound of wheels-“here’s Giles, now, off for the doctor.”

The servant passed.  “Yes, I got here by the sunset express.  I couldn’t stay away-with this impending.”

“I didn’t see you come.”

“No, of course you didn’t see me, for I didn’t go to the station, and so I didn’t pass anywhere near your house.  I got off at the tank and came up the hill path.”

“You must have got drenched; you are drenched.”

“Oh no!  I got in before the rain began.  Let myself in without seeing any one, and found Isabel was over at her mother’s.  So I waited here.”

“Didn’t let her know you were home?” asked Ruth, with a penetrating gaze.

“No, I haven’t been off the place since I came, but I stepped out so many times into the garden to see if she was coming that I’m soaking wet.”

They entered the lighted house, and he turned upon her a glance heavy and wavering with falsehood.  His tongue ran like a terrified horse.  “Oh-eh-before you go upstairs-Ruth-there’s one thing I’m distressed about.  I’ve told Mrs. Morris, and she’s promised to see that the doctor understands it perfectly,-though I shall explain it to him myself the moment he comes.  And still I wish you’d see that he understands, will you?”

“What is it?”

“Why, at last, as I was waiting for Isabel, and saw her coming, I went to meet her.  Unfortunately she took me for a stranger, turned to run, and tripped and fell headlong!  She somehow got her lantern between the base of a tree and the crown of her head, smashed the lantern, and cut and bruised her head pitifully!”

To hide her start of distress Ruth moved up the stair; but after a step or two she turned.  “Arthur, why say anything about it, if nothing is asked?”

The husband stared at her and turned deadly pale.

“Th-that’s tr-true!” he said, with an eager gesture.  “I’ll not mention it.  And-Ruth!”-she was leaving him-“you might s-say the same to Mrs. Morris!”

She nodded, but would not trust her eyes to meet his.  He was right; she had divined his deed.

He went loiteringly into the library and gently closed the door.  Then he turned the light low, paced once up and down the room, and all at once slammed himself full length upon a lounge, and lay face up, face down, by turns, writhing and tearing his hair.

Soon again he was pacing the floor, and presently was prone once more, and then once more up.

Giles, his English man, brought the doctor, and Arthur heard him discoursing as the vehicle drew up.

“Yes, sir, quite so; quite so, sir.  And yet I believe, sir, if h-all money and lands was ’eld in common, the ’olé ’uman ryce would be as ’appy as the gentlemen and lydies on Bylow ’Ill!”

The young husband met the physician cheerily, sent him up, and went back to his solitude.

An hour passed, and then Sarah Stebbens knocked and leaned in.  “Mr. Arthur!”

“What, Sarah?”

“Oh!  I didn’t see you.  All’s well, and it’s a daughter.”