She was deadly pale, and Iver, looking at her, was reminded of the Mehetabel he had seen in his dream. At once she recognized that her husband's arm was being dressed, and leisurely, composedly, she came forward to hold the basin of water, and do whatever was required of her by the surgeon. The first to speak was Iver, who said, "Matabel! We have just been told you had fallen into the water." "Yes. My dress is soaked." "And you managed to get out?" "Yes, when I fell I had hold of my husband's gun and that was caught in a bush; it held me up." "But how came you to fall?" "I believe I was unconscious perhaps a faint." Nothing further could be elicited from her, then or later. Had she any suspicion that she had been struck down? This was a question that, later, Jonas asked himself. But he never knew till--, but we must not anticipate. A day or two after that eventful night he made some allusion to a blow on her head, when she appeared with a bandage round it. "Yes," she said: "I fell, and hurt myself." For some days Bideabout was in much pain and discomfort. His left shoulder had been injured by the ball that had lodged in it, and it was probable that he would always be stiff in that arm, and be unable to raise it above the breast. He was irritable and morose. He watched Mehetabel suspiciously and with mistrust of her intentions. What did she know? What did she surmise? If she thought that he had attempted to put an end to her life, would she retaliate? In his suspicion he preferred to have his sister attend to him, and Sarah consented to do for him, in his sickness, what he required, not out of fraternal affection, but as a means of slighting the young wife, and of observing the relations that subsisted between her and Jonas. Sarah Rocliffe was much puzzled by what had taken place. Her brother's manner had roused her alarm. She knew that he had gone forth with his jealousy lashed to fury. She had herself kindled the fire. Then he had come upon Mehetabel and Iver on the Moor, she could not doubt. How otherwise explain the knowledge of the accident which led Iver to bring the surgeon to the assistance of her brother? But the manner in which the accident had occurred and the occasion of it, all of this was dark to her. Then the arrival of Jonas alone, and his reticence relative to his wife, till she had asked about her; also his extraordinary statement, his manifest terror; and the silence of Mehetabel on her reappearance, all this proved a mystery involving the events of the night, that Sarah Rocliffe was desirous to unravel.