CHAPTER VIII.

A QUARTER OF TWELVE.

Laurie had held her head in his arm all the way home, and now he took her up like a child, and carried her into the house.

Miss Willoughby met him at the door.

“Oh, what is it?” she whispered fearfully.

“Something dreadful has happened to the poor girl. We found her lying in the road, like one dead, and she has never revived, though her heart beats faintly. I sent Crawford on foot for the nearest physician, and brought her home. Lead the way to her room, please, aunt, so that I may lay her down.”

In his arms, with her head against his breast, Laurie bore her to the tiny, white-hung room, spotlessly neat, but, oh, so bare and common-looking in contrast with the other beautiful chambers of the house that it struck on him painfully, somehow, with a sense of incongruity to her loveliness.

“She is housed no better than my aunt’s servants, poor girl!” he thought pityingly, as he laid her down on the hard bed, and drew back, making room for his aunt.

He was astonished to see her bend and kiss the cold white face--the first kiss she had ever given to the lovely waif.

“You may go now, Laurie, and send my maid up here to help me. She will know how to help better than you,” she said, with embarrassment, fearing the angry Lelia might rush into the room at any moment.

With a last pitying glance at the hapless girl, Laurie went out, and soon had Lucinda hurrying to the rescue.

Then thinking of Lelia for the first time in an hour, he asked for her, and was told she had retired some time ago to her own apartment.

He was sorry for it, thinking he would like for his jealous sweetheart to see the poor waif now, believing the sight might awaken pity in the hardest heart.

Meanwhile, Lucinda, quickly undressing Gipsy, had discovered with dismay the injury to her limb.

“Look at that, mistis, all bruised an’ swelled up! You may ’pend ’pon hit, dat Satan kicked her on hit when she jumped at his haid an’ pulled him down from r’arin’ an’ kickin’, de vilyun! I gwine bafe it wid warm water an’ arnica ’twell de doctor come,” exclaimed the black woman kindly, and though her touch was soft as velvet, it caused Gipsy such intolerable pain that she revived and opened wide her great dark, melancholy eyes on their faces.

“Oh, my dear, my dear!” cried Miss Willoughby, sobbing with relief.

“My mistus was ’feared you done gone daid, honey,” explained the maid.

“Oh, how thankful I am to be here in my own little bed, though I cannot dream how I got here,” murmured Gipsy uncertainly. Then a look of comprehension dawned in her wide-open dark eyes, and she almost shrieked:

“What is the hour? For God’s sake, tell me the hour quickly!”

“It’s almost midnight, my dear girl. It struck the quarter to twelve several minutes ago,” replied Miss Willoughby.

“Oh, Heaven, almost midnight! Has anything happened? Where is Miss Ritchie?”

“Asleep in her bed, my dear.”

Gipsy half-raised herself in bed, and pointed wildly to the door, exclaiming:

“Go wake her instantly! Call Mr. Willoughby and the men servants. Oh, tell them to guard Miss Ritchie in her room! While unseen on the lonely road, I overheard two ruffians plotting to steal her diamonds and murder her if she resisted!”

They stared at her in incredulous amazement.

Surely she was out of her senses, poor girl, raving in delirium from her pain.

“Water! Water!” she gasped, and when she had moistened her poor, feverish lips she began again:

“You do not believe me; you think I am raving, but it is not so! Oh, Miss Willoughby, please believe me! I overheard burglars plotting to rob you of your silver, and your niece of her jewels. They had followed her from town because Hattie, Miss Lelia’s maid, had told them she had brought ten thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds here. They said they would have them if they had to kill her and Miss Willoughby, too.”

Her earnest voice, her appealing eyes, carried conviction to Miss Willoughby’s heart. She gasped out faintly:

“Lucinda, go ask Mr. Laurie to step here quickly.”

Lucinda bolted out, and the old lady drew the white covers over the girl, leaving only her pallid, suffering face exposed when Laurie entered.

To him she repeated, between moans of pain, the story of the plot she had overheard.

“They said they would have the job done by midnight, and it is almost that now,” she sobbed. “Oh, what if they have already forced an entrance to her room! Oh, go--go; waste not a moment, for her life may be hanging in the balance while you delay!”

It needed nothing more to make him rush with a groan from the room.

At the same moment he heard the voice of the doctor that Crawford had brought coming up the stairs, and called to him in a frenzied voice:

“Come, doctor, and you, Crawford, with me to Miss Ritchie’s room. There may be something serious happening there! Heavens! I heard her shriek!”