“Oh, my darling!” she murmured. “I do so love you, dear, dear Cynthia!” and she stroked her hair, and kissed her eyelids; Cynthia passive all the while, till suddenly she started up, stung with a new idea, and looking Molly straight in the face, she said—

“Molly, Roger will marry you! See if it isn’t so! You two good”——

But Molly pushed her away, with a sudden violence of repulsion. “Don’t!” she said. She was crimson with shame and indignation. “Your husband this morning! Mine to-night! What do you take him for?”

“A man!” smiled Cynthia. “And therefore, if you won’t let me call him changeable, I’ll coin a word and call him consolable!” But Molly gave her back no answering smile. At this moment, the servant Maria entered the consulting-room, where the two girls were. She had a scared look.

“Isn’t master here?” asked she, as if she distrusted her eyes.

“No!” said Cynthia. “I heard him go out. I heard him shut the front door, not five minutes ago.”

“Oh, dear!” said Maria. “And there’s a man come on horseback from Hamley Hall, and he says as Mr. Osborne is dead, and that master must go off to the Squire straight away.”

“Osborne Hamley dead!” said Cynthia, in awed surprise. Molly was out at the front door, seeking the messenger through the dusk, round into the stable-yard, where the groom sate motionless on his dark horse, flecked with foam, made visible by the lantern placed on the steps near, where it had been left by the servants, who were dismayed at this news of the handsome young man, who had frequented their master’s house, so full of sportive elegance and winsomeness. Molly went up to the man, whose thoughts were lost in recollection of the scene he had left at the place he had come from.

She laid her hand on the hot damp skin of the horse’s shoulder; the man started.

“Is the doctor coming, Miss?” For he saw who it was by the dim light.

“He is dead, is he not?” asked Molly in a low voice.

“I’m afeard he is—leastways, there is no doubt according to what they said. But I’ve ridden hard! there may be a chance. Is the doctor coming, Miss?”

“He is gone out. They are seeking him, I believe. I will go myself. Oh! the poor old Squire!” She went into the kitchen—went over the house with swift rapidity, to gain news of her father’s whereabouts. The servants knew no more than she did. Neither she nor they had heard what Cynthia, ever quick of perception, had done. The shutting of the front door had fallen on deaf ears, as far as others were concerned. Upstairs sped Molly to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Gibson stood at the door, listening to the unusual stir in the house.

“What is it, Molly? Why, how white you look, child!”

“Where’s papa?”

“Gone out. What’s the matter?”

“Where?”

“How should I know? I was asleep; Jenny came upstairs on her way to the bedroom; she’s a girl who never keeps to her work, and Maria takes advantage of her.”

“Jenny, Jenny!” cried Molly, frantic at the delay.