'm--I'm dy--Here, quick!--a doctor, or I shall
bleed to death!" groaned the wretched man.

"Has any one gone for a medical man?" said a stern voice.

"Yes, Sir Mooray, I've sent for a doctor and the police, too. It's gude
for us that the loons were quarrelling over the spoil."

"Isa, my child, this is no place for you!" exclaimed Sir Murray.

"That's right," cried Lord Maudlaine, who was also present; "I've been
asking her to go. My dear Miss Gernon--Isa--what are you about? Don't
go near him!"

Lord Maudlaine might well exclaim, for Isa Gernon, pale and scared, was
slowly advancing towards where Brace Norton lay. The eyes of love were
more piercing than those of the bystanders; and in those swollen and
bleeding features Isa had recognised those of the man who had told her
again and again of his love.

"Brace!" she cried, in a low, husky voice, as, falling upon her knees at
his side, heedless of all present, she laid her hands upon his; for this
could be no burglar, as they had told her--there must be some horrible
mystery here.

"Isa!" he whispered, as his eyes met hers for an instant, ere they
closed.

"Quick!--quick!" cried the agitated girl. "Father--dear papa--oh, what
is this? You have shot him, and he is dying. Oh, quick!--quick!--a
doctor!"

Her cries seemed to drive away the fainting sensation that oppressed
Brace Norton; and as Sir Murray--astounded at his daughter's words--
hurried to her side, the young man's eyes again unclosed, for his lips
to part in a faint smile.

"No, no," he whispered--"not shot--that man--Gurdon--I followed him--
stabbed, I fear--perhaps to death--the cross, Sir Murray; look! Lady
Gernon's--my father's innocence--left for me to prove--I know--old
story--take it, Isa, love--if I pass away, recollect--not--son--
dishonoured man--saved--"

"The brae laddie has fainted, and, Gude save us! it's young Brace
Norton. Here, quick!--some water, and don't all stand staring like daft
fules!" cried McCray. But, at the same moment, with his mind a chaos of
wild thoughts, Sir Murray Gernon had sunk upon his knees by the young
man, whose hands still clutched the sparkling cross, the jewels
glittering brightly yet, though partly encrusted with soot. It was some
few minutes, during which he had been striving to stanch the young man's
wound, before he could arrange his thoughts into something like their
proper sequence.

This man, then--this Gurdon--had, indeed, stolen the cr