s lips.

Oh God! not a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it
against those pallid lips. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful-looking
way; but Violet had seen her father look like that sometimes as he
slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a long
swoon, a suspension of consciousness. Dr. Martin would come
presently--oh, how long, how long the time seemed--and make all things
right.

The crescent moon shone silver pale above that dim gray wood. The
barked trunks gleamed white and spectral in the gathering dark. Owls
began to hoot in the distance, frogs were awaking near at band, belated
rabbits flitted ghost-like across the track. All nature seemed of one
gray or shadowy hue--silvery where the moonbeams fell.

The October air was chill and penetrating. There was a dull aching in
Violet's limbs from the weight of her burden, but she was hardly
conscious of physical pain. It seemed to her that she had been sitting
there for hours waiting for the doctor's help. She thought the night
must have nearly worn itself out.

"Dr. Martin could not have been at home," she said, speaking for the
first time since Roderick rode away. "Mr. Vawdrey would fetch someone
else, surely."

"My dear young lady, he hasn't had time to ride to Lyndhurst yet."

"Not yet," cried Vixen despairingly, "not yet! And it has been so long.
Papa is getting so cold. The chill will be so bad for him."

"Worse for you, miss. I do wish you'd let me take you home."

"And leave papa here--alone--unconscious! How can you be so cruel as to
think of such a thing?"

"Dear Miss Tempest, we're not doing him any good, and you may be
getting a chill that wilt be nigh your death. If you would only go home
to your mamma, now--it's hard upon her not to know--she'll be fretting
about you, I daresay."

"Don't waste your breath talking to me," cried Vixen indignantly; "I
shall not leave this spot till papa goes with me."

They waited for another quarter of an hour in dismal silence. The
horses gnawed the lower branches of the trees, and gave occasional
evidence of their impatience. Bullfinch had gone home to his stable no
doubt. They were only about a mile-and-a-half from the Abbey House.

Hark! what was that? The splish-splash of horses' hoofs on the soft
turf. Another minute and Rorie rode up to the gate with a stranger.

"I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman," he said, "a doctor from
Southampton, who was at the hunt to