The Scot took the youth again in his arms and speedily laid him on his own bed. The jolting, despite the care taken, had shifted the rude bandaging, and the wound bled afresh. Armstrong, anxious for the safety of his burden, had not noticed that his own doublet was smeared with blood. With the better appliances now at hand, he did what was immediately necessary, and revived the lad’s ebbing strength with a second draught from the leathern bottle. A sound of singing came to them as he finished his ministrations. “That is Frances----my sister,” breathed Wentworth with closed eyes. “Break it gently to her, and say I am not dangerously hurt. She will know what to do.” CHAPTER VII.--DETERMINATION. Armstrong stepped out into the hall, closing the door softly behind him. The melody was coming from the broad stairway, and ceased as the singer seemed to pause on the landing. He remembered that landing as he came up with his burden. Its whole length was lit by a row of mullioned windows, and one of these, being open, gave a view upon the green lawn in front of the house. He stood hesitating, undecided whether to advance as far as the head of the stair or await the coming of the girl where he was. Then he heard her voice evidently calling through the open window: “John, there are two saddled horses under the trees. See who has come.” Armstrong strode forward to the stairhead. “Your pardon, madam,” he said. “One of the horses is mine; the other belongs to your brother. May I ask the man to look after them?” The girl turned quickly, her dark eyes wide with alarm. Into the mind of the intruder, looking down upon her from his elevation, flashed the words of her brother,--“It simply means you have not yet met the right woman. When you meet her, you will be in as great a daze as that in which I found you at the cross-roads.” “She is magnificent,” he said to himself. With her mass of black hair falling in wavy cascade over her shoulders, her midnight eyes appealing and dashed with a fear that swept the colour from her cheeks, she looked a pallid goddess standing against the pictured panes. “My brother!” she cried at last. “What of him?” Then, noticing the blood on Armstrong’s coat, she gave utterance to a startled exclamation, moving a step forward and checking herself. “Is he wounded? Has there been a battle? Where is he?” “He is wounded, but not seriously. I brought him to his own room.” Without another word she sprang up the stair, past her interlocutor, and flew along the hall, disappearing into the invalid’s chamber. Armstrong thought it best not to intrude at the moment of their meeting, so passed on down the stair and out to the horses, where he found an old servitor standing guard over them, apparently at a loss what to do or how to account for their presence. “Are you John?” asked the Scot. “Yes, zur.” “Who is the doctor that attends on this family when any of them are ill?” “’E be Doctor Marsden, zur, down t’ th’ village.”