.

Without reply he passed in and went upstairs. Mrs. Morris remained
below.

Isabel's heart beat fast. She had made her change of dress, and in a far
corner of her room, with her face toward the open door that let into
his, was again leaning with a mother's ecstasy over the sleeping babe,
when she heard his step.

It came to his outer door, which from her place could not be seen.

Did he stop, and stand there? No, he had not stopped; he was only moving
softly, for the child's sake.

She stood motionless, listening and looking with her whole soul, and
wishing the light were less dim in this shadowy corner, but knowing
there was enough to show her to him when he should reach the nearer
door. The endless moment wore away, and there on the threshold he
stood--if that--Oh merciful God!--if that was Arthur Winslow.

His eyes fell instantly upon her, yet he made neither motion nor sound,
only stayed and stared, while an unearthly terror came into his face.

Care of the child kept her silent, but in solemn tenderness she lifted
her arms toward him.



He uttered a freezing shriek and fled. In an instant his tread was
resounding in the hall, then on two or three steps of the stair as she
hurried after, and then there came a long, tumbling fall, her mother's
wail in the hail below, and a hoarse cry of dismay from Giles as he
rushed out of the library.

"He's only stunned, mum," Giles was saying as Isabel reached the spot.
"He's no more nor just stunned, mum."

He had lifted the fallen man's head and shoulders, and Mrs. Stebbens
came, dropping to her knees and sprinkling water into the still, white
face.

Isabel threw herself between.

[Illustration: "Arthur! Arthur! can't you speak?"]

"Arthur! Arthur! can't you speak? Oh, let us move him into the library!"

"Yes, um!" exclaimed Giles. "'E'll come to in there; you can see 'e's
only stunned."

He tried to raise him, and Isabel and Sarah moved to help; but the wife
turned on hearing Ruth's voice at her side, and Leonard By

Martha Finley (1828 - 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26th, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the psodonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

Anonymous may refer to: Anonymus, the Latin spelling, may refer to: