“Indeed, indeed, I will not betray you.  I go away in two hours,” said Anne; and he caught her hand.  “But oh!” and she pointed to the blood on the grass, then with sudden thought, “Heap the hay over it,” running to fill her arms with the lately-cut grass.

He mechanically did the same, and then they stood for a moment, awe-stricken.

“God forgive me!” said the poor young man.  “How to hide it I hardly know, but for her sake, ah—­’twas that brought me here.  She could not rest last night till I had promised to be here early enough in the morning to give you a piece of sarcenet to be matched in London.  Where is it?  Ah!  I forget.  It seems to be ages ago that she was insisting that I should ride over so as to be in time.”

“Lucy must write,” said Anne, “O Charley! wipe that dreadful sword, look like yourself.  I am going in a couple of hours.  There is no fear of me! but oh! that you should have done such a thing! and through me!”

“Hush! hush! don’t talk.  I must be gone ere folks are about.  My horse is outside.”  He wrung her hand and kissed it, forgetting to give her the pattern, and Anne, still stunned, walked back to the parsonage, her one thought how to control herself so as to guard Charles’s secret.

It must be remembered that in the generation succeeding that which had fought a long civil war, and when duels were common assertions of honour and self-respect among young gentlemen, homicide was not so exceptional and heinous an offence in ordinary eyes as when a higher value has come to be set on life, and acts of violence are far less frequent.

Charles had drawn his sword in fair fight, and in her own defence, and thus it was natural that Anne Woodford should think of his deed, certainly with a shudder, but with more of pity than of horror, and with gratitude that made her feel bound to do her utmost to guard him from the consequences; also there was a sense of relief, and perhaps a feeling as if the victim were scarcely a human creature like others.  It never occurred to her till some time after to recollect it would have had an unpleasant sound that she had been the occasion of such an ‘unseemly brawl’ between two young men, one of them a married man.  When the thought occurred to her it made the blood rash hotly to her cheeks.

It was well for her that the pain of leaving home and the bustle of preparation concealed that she had suffered a great shock, and accounted for her not being able to taste any breakfast beyond a draught of milk.  Her ears were intent all the time to perceive any token whether the haymakers had come into the court and had discovered any trace of the ghastly thing in the vault, and she hardly heard the kind words of her uncle or the coaxings of his old housekeeper.  She dreaded especially the sight of Hans, so fondly attached to his master’s nephew, and it was with a sense of infinite relief—­instead of the tender grief otherwise natural—­that