their numbed
minds met and mingled in confusion, with that independence of time we
ascribe to dreams. For the echo of the report had not died from the
room when those outside rushed in. The would-be assassin instantly
crumpled up on the floor, a mere heap of grimy clothes, unconscious
even of his failure.

The men clamoured round Christopher with white faces and persistent
inquiries as to whether he were hurt.

He reassured them of that as soon as it appeared to him his voice
could sound across the deafening echo of the shot.

"Not hurt in the least," he said dully, looking down at the huddled
form. "Is he dead?"

They straightened out the poor creature they would gladly have
lynched, and one of them shook his head.

"A fit, I think. Let him be."

A new-comer rushed in with horror-stricken face, and stopped his
tongue at sight of Christopher.

"How's it outside?" whispered one to him.

"Dead." The word was hardly breathed, but Christopher spun round on
his heel.

"Who's dead?"

They looked at him uneasily, and at one another.

He moved to the door mechanically, when an old man, a north-countryman
and a Methodist preacher of some note, laid his hand on his arm.

"Don't 'ee take on, lad. 'Tis the Lord's will which life He'll take
home to him. Maybe He's got bigger work for you than for the little
'un."

"Who is it?" His dry lips hardly framed the words.

"It's Ann Barty's little chap as was passing. We thought 'twere but
the glass."

"Better a boy than a man," muttered another.

Christopher paid no heed. He went out with the old Methodist beside
him. A group of men stood round something under the window which one
of them had covered with a coat. They made way for the master, and not
one of them, fathers and sons as they were, but felt a throb of
thankfulness the small life had been taken in preference to his. But
Christopher knelt down and raised the coat.

"One shall be taken, the other left."

It was old Choris who said it. A little murmur of assent went up from
the circle, bareheaded now, like Christopher. He looked up with
fierce, unspoken dissent to their meek acceptance of this cruel thing,
and then replacing the coat very gently, stood up.

"Has anyone gone to Ann Barty?" he asked quietly.

Someone had gone, it appeared. Someone else had gone for a doctor.
Christopher ordered them to carry the little form into the
waiting-room, where it was laid on the table. Someone fetched a flag
fro