n (who had hurried forth upon my track), as they met me,
seemed to wander from a distant muffling cloud. Only the thought of
Lorna's death, like a heavy knell, was tolling in the belfry of my
brain.

When we came to the stable door, I rather fell from my horse than got
off; and John Fry, with a look of wonder took Kickum's head, and led
him in. Into the old farmhouse I tottered, like a weanling child, with
mother in her common clothes, helping me along, yet fearing, except by
stealth, to look at me.

"I have killed him," was all I said; "even as he killed Lorna. Now let
me see my wife, mother. She belongs to me none the less, though dead."

"You cannot see her now, dear John," said Ruth Huckaback, coming
forward; since no one else had the courage. "Annie is with her now,
John."

"What has that to do with it? Let me see my dead one; and pray myself to
die."

All the women fell away, and whispered, and looked at me, with side
glances, and some sobbing; for my face was hard as flint. Ruth alone
stood by me, and dropped her eyes, and trembled. Then one little hand
of hers stole into my great shaking palm, and the other was laid on
my tattered coat: yet with her clothes she shunned my blood, while she
whispered gently,--

"John, she is not your dead one. She may even be your living one yet,
your wife, your home, and your happiness. But you must not see her now."

"Is there any chance for her? For me, I mean; for me, I mean?"

"God in heaven knows, dear John. But the sight of you, and in this sad
plight, would be certain death to her. Now come first, and be healed
yourself."

I obeyed her, like a child, whispering only as I went, for none but
myself knew her goodness--"Almighty God will bless you, darling, for the
good you are doing now."

Tenfold, ay and a thousandfold, I prayed and I believed it, when I came
to know the truth. If it had not been for this little maid, Lorna must
have died at once, as in my arms she lay for dead, from the dastard and
murderous cruelty. But the moment I left her Ruth came forward and took
the command of every one, in right of her firmness and readiness.

She made them bear her home at once upon the door of the pulpit, with
the cushion under the drooping head. With her own little hands she cut
off, as tenderly as a pear is peeled, the bridal-dress, so steeped and
stained, and then with her dainty transparent fingers (no larger than a
pencil) she probed the vile wound in the side,