d Mr. Dunster's head, she
tried the futile experiment once more.

"Could not a doctor do some good?" she asked of Dixon, in a hopeless
voice.

"No!" said he, shaking his head, and looking with a sidelong glance at
his master, who seemed to shrivel up and to shrink away at the bare
suggestion. "Doctors can do nought, I'm afeard. All that a doctor could
do, I take it, would be to open a vein, and that I could do along with
the best of them, if I had but my fleam here." He fumbled in his pockets
as he spoke, and, as chance would it, the "fleam" (or cattle lancet) was
somewhere about his dress. He drew it out, smoothed and tried it on his
finger. Ellinor tried to bare the arm, but turned sick as she did so.
Her father started eagerly forwards, and did what was necessary with
hurried trembling hands. If they had cared less about the result, they
might have been more afraid of the consequences of the operation in the
hands of one so ignorant as Dixon. But, vein or artery, it signified
little; no living blood gushed out; only a little watery moisture
followed the cut of the fleam. They laid him back on his strange sad
death-couch. Dixon spoke next.

"Master Ned!" said he--for he had known Mr. Wilkins in his days of bright
careless boyhood, and almost was carried back to them by the sense of
charge and protection which the servant's presence of mind and sharpened
senses gave him over his master on this dreary night--"Master Ned! we
must do summut."

No one spoke. What was to be done?

"Did any folk see him come here?" Dixon asked, after a time. Ellinor
looked up to hear her father's answer, a wild hope coming into her mind
that all might be concealed somehow; she did not know how, nor did she
think of any consequences except saving her father from the vague dread,
trouble, and punishment that she was aware would await him if all were
known.

Mr. Wilkins did not seem to hear; in fact, he did not hear anything but
the unspoken echo of his own last words, that went booming through his
heart: "An hour ago I was innocent of this man's blood! Only an hour
ago!"

Dixon got up and poured out half a tumblerful of raw spirit from the
brandy-bottle that stood on the table.

"Drink this, Master Ned!" putting it to his master's lips. "Nay"--to
Ellinor--"it will do him no harm; only bring back his senses, which, poor
gentleman, are scared away. We shall need all our wits. Now, sir,
please answer my question. Did an