as it had done just beneath her horse’s feet, had been a godsend to her.  For a moment the young lord’s arm had been round her waist and her head had been upon his shoulder.  And again when she had slipped from her saddle she had felt his embrace.  His fervour to her had been simply the uncontrolled expression of his feeling at the moment,—­as one man squeezes another tightly by the hand in any crisis of sudden impulse.  She knew this; but she knew also that he would probably revert to the intimacy which the sudden emotion had created.  The mutual galvanic shock might be continued at the next meeting,—­and so on.  They had seen the tragedy together and it would not fail to be a bond of union.  As she told the tragedy to her mother, she delicately laid aside her hat and whip and riding dress, and then asked whether it was not possible that they might prolong their stay at Rufford.  “But the Gores, my dear!  I put them off, you know, for two days only.”  Then Arabella declared that she did not care a straw for the Gores.  In such a matter as this what would it signify though they should quarrel with a whole generation of Gores?  For some time she thought that she would not come down again that afternoon or even that evening.  It might well be that the sight of the accident should have made her too ill to appear.  She felt conscious that in that moment and in the subsequent half hour she had carried herself well, and that there would be an interest about her were she to own herself compelled to keep her room.  Were she now to take to her bed they could not turn her out on the following day.  But at last her mother’s counsel put an end to that plan.  Time was too precious.  “I think you might lose more than you’d gain,” said her mother.

Both Lord Rufford and his sister were very much disturbed as to what they should do on the occasion.  At half-past six Lord Rufford was told that the Major had recovered his senses, but that the case was almost hopeless.  Of course he saw his guest.  “I’m all right,” said the Major.  The Lord sat there by the bedside, holding the man’s hand for a few moments, and then got up to leave him.  “No nonsense about putting off,” said the Major in a faint voice; “beastly bosh all that!”

But what was to be done?  The dozen people who were in the house must of course sit down to dinner.  And then all the neighbourhood for miles round were coming to a ball.  It would be impossible to send messages to everybody.  And there was the feeling too that the man was as yet only ill, and that his recovery was possible.  A ball, with a dead man in one of the bedrooms, would be dreadful.  With a dying man it was bad enough;—­but then a dying man is always also a living man!  Lord Rufford had already telegraphed for a first-class surgeon from London, it having been whispered to him that perhaps Old Nokes from Rufford might be mistaken.  The surgeon could not be there till four o’clock in the morning by which time care would have been taken to remove the signs of the ball; but if there was reason to send for a London surgeon, then also was there reason for hope; and if there were ground for hope, then the desirability of putting off the ball was very much reduced.  “He’s at the furthest end of the corridor,” the Lord said to his sister, “and won’t hear a sound of the music.”