Blind Love

Fanny answered with an effort to preserve her gravity, which was not

quite successfully disguised: "I beg your pardon, Miss; I think they

notice the curious contrast between your beautiful bonnet and your

shabby cloak."

Persons of excitable temperament have a sense of ridicule, and a dread

of it, unintelligible to their fellow-creatures who are made of coarser

material. For the moment, Iris was angry. "Why didn't you tell me of

it," she asked sharply, "before I sent away the carriage? How can I

walk back, with everybody laughing at me?"

She paused--reflected a little--and led the way off the high road, on

the right, to the fine clump of fir-trees which commands the famous

view in that part of the Heath.

"There's but one thing to be done," she said, recovering her good

temper; "we must make my grand bonnet suit itself to my miserable

cloak. You will pull out the feather and rip off the lace (and keep

them for yourself, if you like), and then I ought to look shabby enough

from head to foot, I am sure! No; not here; they may notice us from the

road--and what may the fools not do when they see you tearing the

ornaments off my bonnet! Come down below the trees, where the ground

will hide us."

They had nearly descended the steep slope which leads to the valley,

below the clump of firs, when they were stopped by a terrible

discovery.

Close at their feet, in a hollow of the ground, was stretched the

insensible body of a man. He lay on his side, with his face turned away

from them. An open razor had dropped close by him. Iris stooped over

the prostate man, to examine his face. Blood flowing from a frightful

wound in his throat, was the first thing that she saw. Her eyes closed

instinctively, recoiling from that ghastly sight. The next instant she

opened them again, and saw his face.

Dying or dead, it was the face of Lord Harry.

The shriek that burst from her, on making that horrible discovery, was

heard by two men who were crossing the lower heath at some distance.

They saw the women, and ran to them. One of the men was a labourer; the

other, better dressed, looked like a foreman of works. He was the first

who arrived on the spot.

"Enough to frighten you out of your senses, ladies," he said civilly.

"It's a case of suicide, I should say, by the look of it."

"For God's sake, let us do something to help him!" Iris burst out. "I

know him! I know him!"