burst into passionate sobbing. Because she
was not of the women who wept, her moment's passion was strong and
bitter.
"It need not have been!" she shuddered. "One cannot bear it--because it
need not have been!"
"Stop your horse a moment," he said, reining in his own, while, with
burning eyes and swelling throat, he held and steadied her. But he did
not know that neither her sister nor her father had ever seen her in
such mood, and that she had never so seen herself.
"You shall not remember it," he said to her.
"I will not," she answered, recovering herself. "But for one moment all
the awful hours rushed back. Tell me the rest."
"We did not know that the blunder had been made until a messenger from
Dole rode over to inquire and bring messages of condolence. Then we
understood what had occurred and I own a sort of frenzy seized me. I
knew I must see you, and, though the doctors were horribly nervous, they
dare not hold me back. The day before it would not have been believed
that I could leave my room. You were crying out to me, and though I did
not know, I was answering, body and soul. Penzance knew I must have my
way when I spoke to him--mad as it seemed. When I rode through Stornham
village, more than one woman screamed at sight of me. I shall not be
able to blot out of my mind your sister's face. She will tell you what
we said to each other. I rode away from the Court quite half mad----"
his voice became very gentle, "because of something she had told me in
the first wild moments."
Lady Anstruthers had spent the night moving restlessly from one room
to another, and had not been to bed when they rode side by side up the
avenue in the early morning sunlight. An under keeper, crossing the
park a few hundred yards above them, after one glance, dashed across
the sward to the courtyard and the servants' hall. The news flashed
electrically through the house, and Rosalie, like a small ghost, came
out upon the steps as they reined in. Though her lips moved, she could
not speak aloud, as she watched Mount Dunstan lift her sister from her
horse.
"Childe Harold stumbled and I hurt my foot," said Betty, trying to be
calm.
"I knew he would find you!" Rosalie answered quite faintly. "I knew you
would!" turning to Mount Dunstan, adoring him with all the meaning of
her small paled face.
She would have been afraid of her memory of what she had said in the
strange scene which had taken place before them a few hours a
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