"Yet you made love to this girl--this girl, a farmer's daughter, whose brothers were playing in the fatal game when my boy was killed! One of them may have been his murderer; was I believe; and this is how you showed your consideration for me!" "Mrs. Temple, this is unreasonable." "What is she to you? Answer this question at least; is she your wife?" "As I told them down-stairs, I will betray no one's secrets without their leave." "If she is, you need never bring her here! You heard what your uncle said about your marrying her, but I will not receive her here." "You shall never be asked to do so, nor will I ever return. What my uncle said was worthy of him--the words of a good man, whom I most heartily like and respect--but I will trouble you with my presence here no more." Again Mrs. Temple began those restless pacings up and down the floor; in her anger she had done what she did not wish to do--driven John Temple away--and now she was sorely repenting her own action. "And there is one thing I wish to say before I go," continued John Temple, "that I thank you for all your kindness to me while I have been here. I came to your house under most painful circumstances, but you over-looked this--" "Do not go!" broke in Mrs. Temple, impetuously; "at least, not yet; let us think what can be done, what it will be best to do." "I know what it is best for me to do," answered John Temple, who was now in the act of locking the small portmanteau he meant to carry away with him, "and that is to leave Woodlea at once--good-by, Mrs. Temple." He did not offer her his hand, but she took it almost against his will, and held it. "I have been so lonely," she said, in a broken voice; "so miserably lonely--and now I will be more lonely still." John Temple made no answer to this appeal. "Bid good-by to my uncle for me," he said, "as I do not care, in my present temper, to encounter again those two men down-stairs." "What if you have killed Henderson? They were sending for the doctor for him as I came upstairs." "If I have I can not say I shall deeply regret it, and I am ready to answer for this, as for the rest. But not he! A brute like that is not killed by a blow on the head; and now once more good-by." He was gone before she could speak again, and Mrs. Temple sat down and looked around the desolate rooms. She had admired him during the last half-hour; admired his bravery and independence. "After all he had a right to choose a woman he liked best," she thought; "but it is a terrible mistake. A man who marries a woman of inferior birth and position always repents it--and with such relations!" After awhile, however, she pulled herself together, and went down-stairs, and when she entered the library she found the village doctor there, as well as her husband and Mr. Churchill. Henderson was lying on the couch ghastly pale, with a handkerchief bound around his head, and still insensible, and the doctor was bending over him holding his wrist.