"Come away with me, my dear Miss Tempest," said Wimble, trying to raise Violet from her knees beside the Squire. She was gazing into that awful face distractedly--half divining its solemn meaning--yet watching for the kind eyes to open and look at her again. "Come away with me, and we'll get a doctor. Mr. Vawdrey will take care of your father." "You go for the doctor," she answered firmly. "I'll stay with papa. Take my horse, he's faster than yours. Oh, he'll carry you well enough. You don't know how strong he is--go, quick--quick--Dr. Martin, at Lyndhurst--it's a long way, but you must get him. Papa will recover, and be able to ride home, perhaps, before you can get back to us, but go, go." "You go for the doctor, miss; your horse will carry you fast enough. He'd never carry such a heavy weight as me, and my cob is dead beat. You go, and Mr. Vawdrey will go with you. I'll take care of the Squire." Violet looked from one to the other helplessly. "I'd rather stay with papa," she said. "You go--yes--go, go. I'll stay with papa." She crouched down beside the prostrate figure on the damp marshy ground, took the heavy head on her lap, and looked up at the two men with a pale set face which indicated a resolve that neither of them was strong enough to overrule. They tried their utmost to persuade her, but in vain. She was fixed as a new Niobe--a stony image of young despair. So Roderick mounted his horse and rode off towards Lyndhurst, and honest Jack Wimble tied the other two horses to the gate, and took his stand beside them, a few paces from those two motionless figures on the ground, patiently waiting for the issue of this bitter hour. It was one of the longest, weariest, saddest hours that ever youth and hope lived through. There was an awful heart-sickening fear in Violet's mind, but she gave it no definite shape. She would not say to herself, "My father is dead." The position in which he was lying hampered her arms so that she could not reach out her hand to lay it upon his heart. She bent her face down to his lips. Oh God! not a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it against those pallid lips. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful-looking way; but Violet had seen her father look like that sometimes as he slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a long swoon, a suspension of consciousness. Dr. Martin would come presently--oh, how long, how long the time seemed--and make all things right. The crescent moon shone silver pale above that dim gray wood. The barked trunks gleamed white and spectral in the gathering dark. Owls began to hoot in the distance, frogs were awaking near at hand, belated rabbits flitted ghost-like across the track. All nature seemed of one gray or shadowy hue--silvery where the moonbeams fell.