At last--the way had seemed very long, though in fact it was not more than three hundred yards in length--they reached their goal. Terribly still and silent--a silence that could be felt--the place seemed to both, as, parting the light sprays of the branching evergreens, John Beacham opened the way for his pale wife to enter on the dismal scene. To his infinite relief, he perceived that his late antagonist had raised himself on his elbow, and though fearfully pale and wan, gave evident tokens of still belonging to the land of the living. John, leading the trembling Honor by the hand, drew her forward to his side. “You have sworn to me that she is your child,” he said solemnly, “and may God forgive you if you have told an honest man a lie!” Shuddering from head to foot, and utterly bewildered by such a rapid succession of emotions, Honor could only sink upon her knees, and press silently the delicate white hand of him whom she had so lately been taught to regard as her parent. A sickly smile flitted over the Colonel’s face, and he made a feeble effort to speak. “Say nothing; _I_ shall say nothing,” was all that John, who listened with eagerness unutterable for more, could distinctly catch. Honor, seated on the turf behind him, lay the pale expressive head of her dying father on her breast. Quite still and motionless he rested there, apparently unconscious; but what man of mortal birth could divine the thoughts which might be dimly floating through that deadened and bewildered brain? It might be that visions of the long-ago past--the past when he was young and innocent, and repeating his simple prayer beside his mother’s knee--came back to him in that dismal hour; or, more likely still, was it that the white ghastly face of the girl whom he had _murdered_--not directly, it is true, for he had never lifted a hand against her life, but whom he had as surely slain as though he had “drugged her posset,” or fired a bullet through her brain--was it that the livid face of Winifred Moriarty came back to him from the silent grave, and filled his soul with the dark and nameless terrors of remorse? “He is not dead; his heart beats!” John said in a hoarse whisper, as he stood near in speechless misery; but Honor only shook her head, and the time seemed terribly long to both before the sound of hushed voices and of rapidly-advancing footsteps gave token that help was at last at hand. In a few more moments, Dr. Kempshall, followed closely by the crowd, which on similar occasions never _will_ consent to remain in the background, was examining the awkward wound, the tidings of which had spread consternation through the length and breadth of the well-filled grounds of Danescourt. CHAPTER VII. WAS HONOR GLAD OR SORRY? Drawing his wife’s arm gently within his own, John led her away from the spot where the surgeon was examining the condition of the injured man.