-day. Violet dear, will you let me
take you home now, and leave the doctor and Mr. Wimble with your
father?"

"No," answered Vixen decisively.

The strange doctor knelt down and looked at his patient. He was a
middle-aged man, grave-looking, with iron-gray hair--a man who
impressed Vixen with a sense of power and authority. She looked at him
silently, with a despairing appealing look that thrilled him, familiar
as he was with such looks. He made his examination quietly, saying not
a word, and keeping his face hidden. Then he turned to the two men who
were standing close by, watching him anxiously.

"You must get some kind of litter to carry him home," he whispered.

And then with gentle firmness, with strong irresistible hands, he
separated the living from the dead, lifted Violet from the ground and
led her towards her horse.

"You must let Mr. Vawdrey take you home, my dear young lady," he said.
"You can do nothing here."

"But you--you can do something," sobbed Violet, "you will bring him
back to life--you----"

"I will do all that can be done," answered the doctor gently.

His tone told her more than his words. She gave one wild shriek, and
threw herself down beside her dead father. A cloud came over the
distracted brain, and she lay there senseless. The doctor and Rorie
lifted her up and carried her to the gate where her horse was waiting.
The doctor forced a little brandy through the locked lips, and between
them Rorie and he placed her in the saddle. She had just consciousness
enough by this time to hold the bridle mechanically, and to sit upright
on her horse; and thus led by Roderick, she rode slowly back to the
home that was never any more to be the same home that she had known and
lived in through the joyous sixteen years of her life. All things were
to be different to her henceforward. The joy of life was broken short
off, like a flower snapped from its stem.

CHAPTER IX.

A House of Mourning.

There was sorrow at the Abbey House deeper and wilder than had entered
within those doors for many a year. To Mrs. Tempest the shock of her
husband's death was overwhelming. Her easy, luxurious, monotonous life
had been very sweet to her, but her husband had been the dearest part
of her life. She had taken little trouble to express her love for him,
quite willing that he should take it for granted. She had been
self-indulgent and vain; seeking her own ease, spending money and care
on her own adornmen