Ryder wept over her sad state: the tears were half impulse, half crocodile. She applied hartshorn to the sufferer's nostrils, and tried to rouse her mind by exciting her anger. But all was in vain. There hung the betrayed wife, pale, crushed, and quivering under the cruel blow. Ryder asked her if she should go down and excuse her to her guests. She nodded a feeble assent. Ryder then laid her down on the bed with her head low, and was just about to leave her on that errand, when hurried steps were heard outside the door, and one of the female servants knocked; and, not waiting to be invited, put her head in, and cried, "Oh, Dame, the Master is come home. He is in the kitchen." CHAPTER IV Mrs. Ryder made an agitated motion with her hand, and gave the girl such a look withal, that she retired precipitately. But Mrs. Gaunt had caught the words, and they literally transformed her. She sprang off the bed, and stood erect, and looked a Saxon Pythoness: golden hair streaming down her back and grey eyes gleaming with fury. She caught up a little ivory-handled knife, and held it above her head. "I'll drive this into his heart before them all," she cried," and tell them the reason _afterwards!_" Ryder looked at her for a moment in utter terror. She saw a woman with grander passions than herself: a woman that looked quite capable of executing her sanguinary threat. Ryder made no more ado, but slipped out directly to prevent a meeting that might be attended with such terrible consequences. She found her master in the kitchen, splashed with mud, drinking a horn of ale after his ride, and looking rather troubled and anxious; and, by the keen eye of her sex, she saw that the female servants were also in considerable anxiety. The fact is they had just extemporized a lie. Tom Leicester being near the kitchen window, had seen Griffith ride into the court-yard. At sight of that well-known figure, he drew back, and his heart quaked at his own imprudence, in confiding Griffith's secret to Caroline Ryder. "Lasses," said he, hastily, "do me a kindness for old acquaintance. Here's the Squire. For heaven's sake don't let him know I am in the house, or there will be bloodshed between us; he is a hasty man, and I'm another. I'll tell ye more by and by." The next moment Griffith's tread was heard approaching the very door, and Leicester darted into the housekeeper's room, and hid in a cupboard there. Griffith opened the kitchen door, and stood upon the threshold. The women curtseyed to him, and were loud in welcome. He returned their civilities briefly; and then his first word was--"Hath Thomas Leicester been here?" You know how servants stick together against their master. The girls looked him in the face, like candid doves, and told him Leicester had not been that way for six months or more. Why, I have tracked him to within two miles," said Griffith, doubtfully.