aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been
standing. Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.

"Richard!" she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
"Richard!"

He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. "Had you
known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause
for this affair," he chid her peevishly.

"What are you saying?" she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.

"I am saying," said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he
spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, "that it is your fault that
I am like to get my throat cut before sunset."

"My fault?" she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim
about her. "My fault?"

"The fault of your wanton ways," he accused her harshly. "You have so
played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of
your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself
killed by him to save the family honour."

He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song;
in the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It was
Diana who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when