Page:Gaskell--A dark night's work.djvu/104

Rh heard steps coming with rushing and yet cautious tread, through the shrubbery; she had no fear, although it might be the tread of robbers and murderers. The awfulness of the hour raised her above common fears; though she did not go through the usual process of reasoning, and by it feel assured that the feet which were coming so softly and swiftly along were the same which she had heard leaving the room in like manner only a quarter of an hour before.

Her father entered, and started back, almost upsetting some one behind him by his recoil, on seeing his daughter in her motionless attitude by the dead man.

“My God, Ellinor! what has brought you here?” he said, almost fiercely.

But she answered as one stupefied,

“I don’t know. Is he dead?”

“Hush, hush, child; it cannot be helped.”

She raised her eyes to the solemn, pitying, awe-stricken face behind her father’s—the countenance of Dixon.

“Is he dead?” she asked of him.

The man stepped forwards, respectfully pushing his master on one side as he did so. He bent down over the corpse, and looked, and listened and then reaching a candle off the table, he signed Mr. Wilkins to close the door. And Mr. Wilkins obeyed,