whom she had deceived!

The terrified servants hurried into the room. Their appearance roused
their master from the extraordinary stupor that had seized him. He was
at the window before the footman could get there. The two lifted Sir
Joseph into the room, and laid him on the sofa. Natalie knelt by him,
supporting his head. Miss Lavinia stanched the flowing blood with her
handkerchief. The women-servants brought linen and cold water. The man
hurried away for the doctor, who lived on the other side of the village.
Left alone again with Turlington, Natalie noticed that his eyes were
fixed in immovable scrutiny on her father's head. He never said a word.
He looked, looked, looked at the wound.

The doctor arrived. Before either the daughter or the sister of the
injured man could put the question, Turlington put it--"Will he live or
die?"

The doctor's careful finger probed the wound.

"Make your minds easy. A little lower down, or in front, the blow might
have been serious. As it is, there is no harm done. Keep him quiet, and
he will be all right again in two or three days."

Hearing those welcome words, Natalie and her aunt sank on their knees in
silent gratitude. After dressing the wound, the doctor looked round for
the master of the house. Turlington, who had been so breathlessly eager
but a few minutes since, seemed to have lost all interest in the case
now. He stood apart, at the window, looking out toward the church-yard,
thinking. The questions which it was the doctor's duty to ask were
answered by the ladies. The servants assisted in examining the injured
man's clothes: they discovered that his watch and purse were both
missing. When it became necessary to carry him upstairs, it was the
footman who assisted the doctor. The foot man's master, without a word
of explanation, walked out bare headed into the back garden, on the
search, as the doctor and the servants supposed, for some trace of the
robber who had attempted Sir Joseph's life.

His absence was hardly noticed at the time. The difficulty of conveying
the wounded man to his room absorbed the attention of all the persons
present.

Sir Joseph partially recovered his senses while they were taking him up
the steep and narrow stairs. Carefully as they carried the patient, the
motion wrung a groan from him before they reached the top. The bedroom
corridor, in the rambling, irregularly built house rose and fell on
different levels. At the door of the first