th the inbred nervous strength which the weakest woman living
has in reserve when she is outraged. Half indignant, half terrified, at
Turlington's roughness, Miss Lavinia rose to interfere. In a moment more
he would have had two women to overpower instead of one, when a noise
outside the window suddenly suspended the ignoble struggle.

There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel-walk which ran between the
house wall and the garden lawn. It was followed by a tap--a single faint
tap, no more--on one of the panes of glass.

They all three stood still. For a moment more nothing was audible. Then
there was a heavy shock, as of something falling outside. Then a groan,
then another interval of silence--a long silence, interrupted no more.

Turlington's arm dropped from Natalie. She drew back to her aunt.
Looking at him instinctively, in the natural expectation that he would
take the lead in penetrating the mystery of what had happened outside
the window, the two women were thunderstruck to see that he was, to
all appearance, even more startled and more helpless than they were.
"Richard," said Miss Lavinia, pointing to the window, "there is
something wrong out there. See what it is." He stood motionless, as if
he had not heard her, his eyes fixed on the window, his face livid with
terror.

The silence outside was broken once more; this time by a call for help.

A cry of horror burst from Natalie. The voice outside--rising wildly,
then suddenly dying away again--was not entirely strange to _her_ ears.
She tore aside the curtain. With voice and hand she roused her aunt to
help her. The two lifted the heavy bar from its socket; they opened the
shutters and the window. The cheerful light of the room flowed out over
the body of a prostrate man, lying on his face. They turned the man
over. Natalie lifted his head.

Her father!

His face was bedabbled with blood. A wound, a frightful wound, was
visible on the side of his bare head, high above the ear. He looked at
her, his eyes recognized her, before he fainted again in her arms.
His hands and his clothes were covered with earth stains. He must
have traversed some distance; in that dreadful condition he must have
faltered and fallen more than once before he reached the house. His
sister wiped the blood from his face. His daughter called on him
frantically to forgive her before he died--the harmless, gentle,
kind-hearted father, who had never said a hard word to her! The father