A minute later Henderson and Mr. Churchill entered the room. Henderson’s face was flushed a dusky red, but Mr. Churchill’s looked pale, angry, and determined. He gave a quick, sharp glance around, and then advanced toward the squire, who gravely held out his hand, which, however, his tenant scarcely touched.

“I’ve come on unpleasant business, Mr. Temple,” he said, quickly; and then he looked at John Temple.

“You mean about—” began the squire in faltering tones.

“I mean about my daughter, sir! This gentleman,” and he turned to Henderson, “has come to me this morning with a fine tale; he says my girl is living in London, and that your nephew has placed her there.”

For a moment or two no one spoke. Mr. Churchill was looking indignantly at John Temple, and the dark flush on Henderson’s face had deepened, while his eyes also were fixed with an angry scowl on Temple.

“John,” said the squire, in a firmer voice, after a brief silence; “you hear what Mr. Churchill says; is this charge true or false?”

John Temple looked slowly round at each man in turn.

“I decline to answer any questions on the subject,” he said, in a clear, firm voice.

“But I’ve a right to ask questions on the subject, sir!” almost shouted Mr. Churchill, angrily. “This girl, my daughter, disappeared from her home and nothing has been heard of her since; and now I hear she is writing to you in a way that if she isn’t married to you she ought to be.”

“I admit your right to ask questions, Mr. Churchill,” answered John Temple, still firmly; “but I have no right to betray the secrets of others. And if this spy,” and his eyes kindled, and he stretched out his arm in the direction of Henderson, “has already told you so much, he had better tell you more.”

“You dare to call me a spy, sir!” cried Henderson, in a voice hoarse with passion.

“Yes, and something worse,” answered John Temple, fiercely; “because this young lady rejected your insolent advances—advances which were an insult to her from a man like you; a man who had betrayed and broken another woman’s heart, and then, as I believe there is a God above us, murdered her—!”

For an instant Henderson turned ghastly pale, as this terrible accusation reached his ears, and then, with a scream of rage, he sprang forward and struck John Temple a violent blow on the chest. But he had met his match. For the next moment a swift, hammer-like thud from John’s clenched fist hit his brow, and he reeled back, and striking his head as he did so against the sharp corner of the writing table, he fell heavily on the floor.

Mrs. Temple gave a cry, and both Mr. Temple and Mr. Churchill ran forward to his assistance. They lifted up his head, but he was seemingly unconscious, and a sudden fear darted into the squire’s heart.

“He—is not dead,” he said, falteringly.

“What matter if he is?” said John Temple, still fiercely; and then without another word he turned and left the room, while the others raised Henderson on a couch, and Mrs. Temple violently rang the bell for further help.

In the meantime John Temple had gone to his own rooms, and for a moment stood there, panting still from his recent encounter, thinking how he should act. But his hesitation was very brief. He would go to May; in her hands alone now lay the course of their future lives.

“If she loves me as I love her, we shall not part,” he thought; “the world is wide.”

This was his decision, and he quickly acted on it. He pulled out a portmanteau, and was thrusting into it some things that he would require, when a rap sounded at his sitting-room door, and the next moment Mrs. Temple, pale and excited, entered the room.

In a second she saw the preparations for his departure.

“You are going away?” she said, quickly.

“Do you think I would stay?” he answered, scornfully.

Mrs. Temple made no answer; she stood there looking at him, and a strange revulsion of feeling swept through her breast.

“I—I do not want to drive you away,” she said.

“Yet you have done so,” answered John Temple, looking up at her, for he was kneeling on the ground, packing his portmanteau. “But for you this never would have happened.”

Mrs. Temple’s tall form swayed restlessly, and her pale, handsome face quivered.

“I hated to think,” she said, with sudden passion, “of your degrading yourself so.”

“I have not done so,” replied John Temple, rising to his feet and looking at her steadily.

“You have! This girl should have been nothing to you, nothing! And if in some hour of madness you had been betrayed into any folly, if you had trusted me I would have helped you if I could.”

“I have been betrayed into nothing,” answered John, coldly; “whatever I have done is by my own will.”

Mrs. Temple began walking restlessly up and down the room, and then she suddenly stopped before John.

“You came here,” she began; “you took my boy’s place—”

“You know how deeply I grieved for you,” said John Temple; “in everything I wished to consider you.”

“Yet you made love to this girl—this girl, a farmer’s daughter, whose brothers were playing in the fatal game when my boy was killed! One of them may have been his murderer; was I believe; and this is how you showed your consideration for me!”

“Mrs. Temple, this is unreasonable.”

“What is she to you? Answer this question at least; is she your wife?”

“As I told them down-stairs, I will betray no one’s secrets without their leave.”

“If she is, you need never bring her here! You heard what your uncle said about your marrying her, but I will not receive her here.”

“You shall never be asked to do so, nor will I ever return. What my uncle said was worthy of him—the words of a good man, whom I most heartily like and respect—but I will trouble you with my presence here no more.”

Again Mrs. Temple began those restless pacings up and down the floor; in her anger she had done what she did not wish to do—driven John Temple away—and now she was sorely repenting her own action.

“And there is one thing I wish to say before I go,” continued John Temple, “that I thank you for all your kindness to me while I have been here. I came to your house under most painful circumstances, but you over-looked this—”

“Do not go!” broke in Mrs. Temple, impetuously; “at least, not yet; let us think what can be done, what it will be best to do.”

“I know what it is best for me to do,” answered John Temple, who was now in the act of locking the small portmanteau he meant to carry away with him, “and that is to leave Woodlea at once—good-by, Mrs. Temple.”

He did not offer her his hand, but she took it almost against his will, and held it.

“I have been so lonely,” she said, in a broken voice; “so miserably lonely—and now I will be more lonely still.”

John Temple made no answer to this appeal.

“Bid good-by to my uncle for me,” he said, “as I do not care, in my present temper, to encounter again those two men down-stairs.”

“What if you have killed Henderson? They were sending for the doctor for him as I came upstairs.”

“If I have I can not say I shall deeply regret it, and I am ready to answer for this, as for the rest. But not he! A brute like that is not killed by a blow on the head; and now once more good-by.”

He was gone before she could speak again, and Mrs. Temple sat down and looked around the desolate rooms. She had admired him during the last half-hour; admired his bravery and independence.

“After all he had a right to choose a woman he liked best,” she thought; “but it is a terrible mistake. A man who marries a woman of inferior birth and position always repents it—and with such relations!”

After awhile, however, she pulled herself together, and went down-stairs, and when she entered the library she found the village doctor there, as well as her husband and Mr. Churchill.

Henderson was lying on the couch ghastly pale, with a handkerchief bound around his head, and still insensible, and the doctor was bending over him holding his wrist.

Then when the squire saw his wife, he stepped back toward her and half-whispered in her ear:

“Where is John Temple?” he said.

“He is gone,” she answered, “and he says he will never return.”

Mr. Temple upon this beckoned to Mr. Churchill.

“Mrs. Temple says my nephew has left the house, Mr. Churchill,” he said.

“Then I’ll follow him,” answered the farmer, sturdily; “you have told me, squire, that if he has not already done my girl justice that you wish him and authorize him to do so?”

“Most certainly,” replied Mr. Temple; “I am ready and wishful to receive your daughter as his wife.”

“I thank you, sir, with all my heart. Will you give me the address, madam, where she is, for all this has well-nigh put it out of my head,” he added, addressing Mrs. Temple, “and I’ll go up to London to-night, or to-morrow at latest.”

Mrs. Temple went to the writing-table without a word, and wrote down Miss Webster’s address in Pembridge Terrace, which she remembered only too well, and handed it to Mr. Churchill.

“Thank you kindly, madam,” he said, “and now, as the doctor’s here, and the squire, I think I’ll go, as I leave Mr. Henderson in such good hands, and I have my missus to consult a bit, and some business to see about before I can get off to London. Good-morning, madam; good-morning, squire.”

So Mr. Churchill went away, but he was scarcely gone when Mrs. Layton rushed hastily into the room. She had heard a report somehow that there had been a quarrel between young Henderson and John Temple, and that the doctor had been sent for, so she had hurried up to the Hall to see and hear all about it.

“What is this, Rachel!” she cried, looking at the prostrate figure on the couch. “Whatever has happened?”

Mrs. Temple shrugged her shoulders.

“It means a fight,” she said, scornfully, “and there is the fallen one!” And she pointed to Henderson.

“But what on earth did they quarrel about?” asked Mrs. Layton, eagerly.

“The village beauty,” answered Mrs. Temple, still more scornfully; “it seems my nephew, John Temple, had run away with Miss Churchill, and his uncle has given his consent to his marriage with her, so we may expect her here.”

“What!” almost screamed Mrs. Layton.

“Rachel,” said the squire in grave reproof, “is this a way in which to speak of a most painful affair? If John Temple did induce this young lady to leave her home, as you say he did, he is bound in honor to make her his wife.”

“To make Margaret Churchill his wife!” screamed Mrs. Layton. “Why, squire, you must be mad to dream of such a thing!”

The squire gave a contemptuous bow.

“You may have your ideas, madam,” he said, “and I have mine. I have told you what mine are, and in my own house. I’ll see they are respected.”

Mrs. Layton’s face fell; the squire might be mad, was mad to talk thus, but still he was the master of the house from which so many good things went to the vicarage, and she could not afford to quarrel with him.

“Of course, I did not mean that,” she began, but with another bow Mr. Temple left the room, and Mrs. Layton was alone with her daughter, except for the presence of the doctor and the unconscious Henderson, who were quite at the other end of it.

“Did I not tell you long ago,” hissed Mrs. Layton in her daughter’s ear, “what this John Temple was? A viper, a scorpion, and now he’s turned and stung you! Oh! that I should ever live to see that upstart here! Margaret Churchill indeed!”

“She’s not here yet,” answered Mrs. Temple, bitterly; “ten to one John Temple will never marry her—why should he?”