he next minute he was out of sight.

Mrs. Boulby stood terrified. The silence of the night hanging everywhere
seemed to call on her for proof that she had beheld a real earthly
spectacle, and the dead thump of the hooves on the snow-floor in passing
struck a chill through her as being phantom-like. But she had seen
a saddle on the horse, and the stirrups flying, and the horse looked
affrighted. The scene was too earthly in its suggestion of a tale
of blood. What if the horse were Robert's? She tried to laugh at her
womanly fearfulness, and had almost to suppress a scream in doing
so. There was no help for it but to believe her brandy as good and
efficacious as her guests did, so she went downstairs and took a
fortifying draught; after which her blood travelled faster, and the
event galloped swiftly into the recesses of time, and she slept.

While the morning was still black, and the streets without a sign
of life, she was aroused by a dream of some one knocking at her
grave-stone. "Ah, that brandy!" she sighed. "This is what a poor woman
has to pay for custom!" Which we may interpret as the remorseful morning
confession of a guilt she had been the victim of over night. She knew
that good brandy did not give bad dreams, and was self-convicted.
Strange were her sensations when the knocking continued; and presently
she heard a voice in the naked street below call in a moan, "Mother!"

"My darling!" she answered, divided in her guess at its being Harry or
Robert.

A glance from the open window showed Robert leaning in the quaint old
porch, with his head bound by a handkerchief; but he had no strength to
reply to a question at that distance, and when she let him in he made
two steps and dropped forward on the floor.

Lying there, he plucked at her skirts. She was shouting for help, but
with her ready apprehension of the pride in his character, she knew what
was meant by his broken whisper before she put her ear to his lips, and
she was silent, miserable sight as was his feeble efforts to rise on an
elbow that would not straighten.

His head was streaming with blood, and the stain was on his neck and
chest. He had one helpless arm; his clothes were torn as from a fierce
struggle.

"I'm quite sensible," he kept repeating, lest she should relapse into
screams.

"Lord love you for your spirit!" exclaimed the widow, and there they
remained, he like a winged eagle, striving to raise himself from time
to time, and fightin