God knows how it all happened—I don’t. If I had only been quick enough to see in time, the captain’s youngest might have been alive this day, a brave young fellow, such as the captain had been in those first days in India—a brave, handsome young soldier, as would have been a honor to his country, and a stanch friend yet to me. But that weren’t to be. Just as he stood there, his foot on the carriage-step, a-holding his sister’s hand, the passion in the heart of the rascal watching him broke forth. He caught him by the shoulder, there were a short struggle as the boy tried to free himself, and before I could reach them he had whirled him away from the door—with greater force than he intended, I’ve tried to believe. The frightened horses lashed out their hoofs and sprang forward, struggling over the child’s very body as he lay stunned under their feet. Scoundrel as he was, I never could make it look square to myself as the man meant the harm he did. His face was out and out deathly, as he leaped forward to save him as quick as I did myself. But we were both too late. We could only drag at the reins, and stop the horses in time to prevent the wheels passing over him—that were all. We had him out in a minute, and Miss Rose was out of the carriage, kneeling on the pavement by him, and the driver was down off his box. “Great God!” says Roscoe, “I never meant to do him such a harm. He’s dead!” And he shuddered all over, with fear, perhaps, as much as anything else. But he weren’t dead, and he hadn’t even fainted, though he were stunned at first. I had lifted him in my arms, and he lay against me, panting a bit, and stone-white, all but for a stain of blood on one temple. It weren’t his head as was so badly hurt, it were his side, where one of the horses had lashed out and struck him. And as sure as I’m a living man, in a few minutes he opens his eyes and lays hold of his sister’s hand. “Rose,” he says, “will you—go home—with me—now?” She knelt over him, wringing her hands, and sobbing as if her heart would break. She would not let her lover come near her. When he tried to speak, she shrank away, shuddering. It’s my belief as what she had seen in his face during the last ten minutes would have broke her faith in him, even if the young master had met no hurt. And now she were that terrified that she were as helpless as a child. “Is he much hurt?” she kept saying. “Rabbett, oh, Rabbett! let me take him home to mamma. Put him into the carriage.” And then she turned upon Roscoe, fierce and wild. “Go away,” she cried out. “You have killed him! Go away, and never let me see you again!” There were a dreadful house when we took him home. Mrs. Dalgetty went out of one faint into another, as she always did when she were frightened. The servants ran backward and forward, doing nothing, the children crowded round us, crying, and the captain looked on at all we did like a man in a dream.