Mrs. Eade fretted sadly over these evidences
of George's rancorous and ungodly disposition.
To her, he seemed to be on the high road to
perdition, and she ended by sending to Mr.
Murray, the rector, to beg he would he pleased
to look in upon her some morning soon, as she
was greatly troubled in her mind. But Mr. Murray
was at that time ill, and nearly a fortnight
elapsed before he was able to answer her summons.
Meanwhile, other events occurred.

It was notorious that one of Mrs. Gibbs's
greatest trials was about her boy, whom her
husband persisted in driving out, at the risk, as
every one thought, of his life. Fearful had
been the scenes between the parents on this
account; but the more she wept and implored,
the more he resisted her entreaties. One day,
to frighten her still more, he placed the little
fellow, with the whip in his hand, on the
carriage-seat alone, and stood at his door himself,
loosely holding the reins, and jeering at his wife,
who in an agony of terror kept beseeching him
to get in, or to let her do so. Suddenly the report
of a gun was heard in a neighbouring field; the
horse took fright, and started off wildly, jerking
the reins from the hands of the half-intoxicated
Gibbs; the whip fell from the hands of the child
on the animal's back, still further exciting it;
and the boy, thrown with violence to the bottom
of the carriage, lay half stunned by the shock.

George was close by when this occurred.
He threw himself on the flying horse, and,
seizing the bearing-rein with his whole strength,
held on like grim death, in spite of being
half dragged, half borne, along in its headlong
flight. At last the animal, getting its
legs entangled in the long trailing reins, fell
with fearful violence, and lay stunned and
motionless. George was thrown to the ground,
but escaped with a few trifling bruises. The
child at the bottom of the carriage, though
frightened and screaming, was altogether uninjured.
In less than five minutes half the village
was collected on the spot, inquiring, congratulating,
applauding; and Susan, with her rescued
child clinging to her bosom, was covering
George's hands with passionate tears and kisses.

"Bless you! Bless you a thousand times!"
she cried, sobbing hysterically. "You've saved
my darling's life! He might have been killed
but for you! How can I ever——"

But a rough hand shoved her aside. "What
are you after now?" Gibbs's furious voice was
heard to cry, with a shocking oath. "Leave
that fellow alone, or I'll——! Are you making
a fool of yourself this way, because he's lamed
the horse so that he'll have to be shot?"

The poor thing sank down on the bank and
broke into a fit of hysterical weeping; whilst a
murmur of "Shame, shame!" rose among the
bystanders.

George Eade had turned coldly from Susan
when she rushed up to him, and had striven to
withdraw his hands from her grasp; but now,
confronting Gibbs, he said, "It'll be a good deed
done, whoever shoots that brute of yours, and
it'd be a better still to shoot you as a man would
a mad dog!"

All heard the words. All trembled at his
look as he uttered them. The whole of the pent-up
rage and resentment of the last three years
seemed concentrated in that one look of savage
and unutterable hatred.

Mr. Murray found poor Mrs. Eade very suffering,
when, two mornings after, he called to
congratulate her on her son's escape. She had not
closed her eyes since the accident. George's
look and words, as they had been described to
her, haunted her. The good clergyman could
give her but scant comfort. He had tried again
and again to reason with and soften her son, but
ineffectually. George answered him, with a certain
rude respect, that as long as he did his work
properly, and injured no man, he had a right to
decide for himself in matters concerning only
himself; and one of his fixed decisions was never
again to see the inside of a church.

"It's a hard trial, my good friend," said Mr.
Murray, "a hard and mysterious trial. But I
say to you, have faith. There is a hidden good
in it, that we can't see now."

"It'd be strange if I wasn't thankful for his
being spared," Mrs. Eade replied. "It'd be
worse than anything to have tne dear lad took,
revengeful and unforgiving as he is now. But
you see, sir——"

She was stopped in her eager speech by a
knock at the door. The son of Mr. Beach,
the neighbouring butcher, peeped in. He
scraped a bow on seeing the clergyman sitting
with her, and looked from one to the other with
a doubtful demeanour.

"I don't want nothing this morning, thank
you, Jim," Mrs. Eade said. Then, struck with
the peculiar expression of the young man's face,
she added: "Ain't Mr. Beach so well this morning?
You look all nohow."

"I'm—I'm a bit flustered," the youth replied,
wiping his steaming forehead; "I've just been
seeing him, and it gave me such a turn!"

"Him! who?"

"Sure! Haven't ye heard, sir? Gibbs have
been found dead in Southanger Woods—murdered
last night. They say——"

"Gibbs murdered!"

There was a pause of breathless horror.

"They've been carrying his corpse to the
Dunstan Arms, and I see it."

Mrs. Eade turned so deadly faint that the
clergyman called out hurriedly for Jemima,
the servant girl. But Jemima had run out
wildly on hearing the appalling intelligence,
and was now midway between her master's
house and the Gibbs's, listening to a knot of
people, all wondering, surmising, gazing with
scared eyes at that door in the high wall, the
threshold of which its master would never cross
again, except feet foremost.

The Eades' parlour was soon full to overflowing.
Most of the dwellers on the common had
congregated there—why, perhaps none would
have cared to explain. Simon Eade came in
among the first, and was doing his best to soothe
and restore the poor fainting woman, who could
hardly as yet realise what had occurred. In the
midst of the confusion—the questioning, the