“And for ever!” said Mark, with burning eyes, as he forced the words through his teeth.
She bowed her head.
“For ever!” she repeated.
“Lotte!” he exclaimed, with intense excitement, “I cannot argue this point with you—I cannot. I will not bid you farewell—I dare not; yet, girl, we shall never, never meet again!”
He almost shrieked those last words, and rushed out of the room.
She would have followed him, but that she sank gasping and fainting upon the floor.
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environ’d with a wilderness of sea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave;
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
—Shakspere.
Mr. Grahame, after the departure of Chewkle, suffered the worst tortures of a terrible suspense. He had no peace night nor day within his house, or away from it. The second flight of Helen, and the narration given of it by Lester Vane, in terms calculated to excoriate the haughty man’s arrogant pride, were deprived of their more agonizing features by the greater evils that threatened him.
Already had Nathan Gomer so far kept his word, that he had caused process to be issued upon the sums last advanced: and Mr. Grahame had the inexpressible mortification of being served with a series of writs in his own library, and by no other person than Charles Clinton.
The firm with which he was connected had been instructed by Nathan Gomer, and the delicate task—a very painful one, as it proved—of serving process was entrusted to him, because Mr. Grahame had not responded to a request made to him to name a solicitor who would accept service for him.
Charley was quite aware of the desperate position of Mr. Grahame’s affairs, as well as of the internal misery raging in the bosom of one-half of the members of the family, and the inflated elevation of the other portion, ignorant, through the most blind fatuity, of the fearful precipice upon which they were already tottering.
His interviews with Evangeline had, since the second departure of Helen from home, been several; for she anxiously desired not only to learn the fate of her sister, but she formed a wild notion of leaving home herself, and living with Helen, whatever might be the circumstances in which she was placed.
She was wholly ignorant of the outer world; she had been brought up in strict home seclusion, and from the almost excessive amiability of her nature had been, as will have been seen, kept in the back ground, as a degenerate member of a proud race. Her impulses had been sneered at or sharply checked, but no attempt had been made to give them a direction. She was unhappy at home, and there seemed every probability to her that if she remained with her family she would continue to be treated ever the same—more, indeed, like an unwelcome dependant than a child, loving and loveable.
Now Helen—especially in her affliction—had been affectionate and tender in her behaviour to her, and had thus raised within her bosom a degree of attachment to her which would pause at no sacrifice to secure her happiness. She believed that if she were with Helen, she would be able to minister to her comforts, solace her griefs, and smoothe away by her loving gentleness many of her heart-cankering cares. At the same time she would be with one who would appreciate her acts, respond to them with warmth, and not repel the tributes of a most generous nature with the cold precepts of frigid pride.
So she formed a design to leave home too, that she might live with Helen; happier she felt she should be in privation and poverty with her, than surrounded by luxury and pomp at home, unaccompanied by a soft look or a kind word. In her deep anxiety to know where Helen had hidden herself, she applied, through the means agreed upon, to Charley Clinton to obtain the information. Well for her it was that his heart was full of manly honour, for he took no advantage of her formidable error in holding clandestine meetings with him. Well for her that the bland language addressed to her at various times by Lester Vane had not induced her to open her heart to him respecting her sister Helen, her own position at home, and the form her wishes had taken. The consequences of her unwitting error would have been evidenced in her certain ruin.
As it was, Charley Clinton fell in love with her, but he kept the knowledge of the fact confided to his own bosom. Firstly, he would not for the realization of his uttermost wishes have betrayed the confidence she reposed in him. Secondly, she appeared so elevated above him in position that, whatever might be his adoration of her, he saw it was not for him to plead a love-tale in her aristocratic ear. He treated her, therfore, with the very highest respect, the most thoughtful consideration, and the gentlest deference.
Evangeline appreciated his conduct to her fully. It was unusual and delicious. She so wished to be loved that she might prove how much she could love, and how pure and disinterested that love could be. She had no clear idea of the actual consequences of raising such an emotion in the breast of Charles Clinton. After the first two or three meetings, she began to ponder on the difference between his treatment of her and that of others. The servants of her father’s household, taking their tone from the conduct of Mr. and Mrs. Grahame, were less respectful or attentive to her than to any other member of the family. In the presence of all at home, she felt herself to be an intruder—some one who was of necessity obliged to be kept in the family, but most unwelcome, nevertheless.
In the society of Charles Clinton she was a wholly different being. She was elevated in her own estimation, for she saw that she was in his. She could perceive by his words, his looks, his manner, how highly he appreciated the affection she had displayed towards her sister Helen, and how his zeal and his behaviour, still tempered by the most respectful propriety towards her, increased. It was the first time she had experienced the gratification of being held in high estimation by any human creature. She was fascinated by it, and she desired heartily to retain that estimation. The desire to learn Helen’s fate began to be accompanied by the wish to learn it from no other lips than those of Charles Clinton. The hope that she should eventually be able to discover her sister and to reside with her, came to be interpenetrated by anticipations that Charles through his sister might be an occasional visitor at her new abode. His name, out of gratefulness for his exertions, took its place in her prayers. The intervals between their meetings grew fewer, and the term of the duration of the latter longer. Even those intervals were broken by correspondence, though neither in their interviews nor in their notes did one word of love arise.
Evangeline grew anxious and eager for the time of meeting after it had been appointed, and loth to part with Charley when the moment for separation arrived. She hung on his arm when they were about to part, and with a strange pleasure suffered her hand to linger in his when the word “farewell” was spoken; and as she felt his fingers tremble while they held hers, she seemed to know intuitively that they did so out of his great respect for her. A crimson hectic burned her cheek, as an unbidden but ungratified prompting rose up in her breast to kiss them, for their flattering testimony of his estimation of her.
Such was the position between Charles Clinton and Evangeline when he was called upon to proceed to the mansion in the Regent’s Park, to execute his—at all times unpleasant, and now from what had passed between him and the gentle girl—most painful task.
The whole establishment was brilliantly lighted up. A splendid dinner-party and rout was that evening to be given by the direction of Mrs. Grahame.
Mr. Grahame had demurred, alleging that circumstances would render it inconvenient to him; but as he had not revealed to his lady the true reason for not wishing the entertainment to be given, the lady treated his suggestions with contempt, and issued her invitations and her instructions for the feast.
The fact was, that the Duke of St. Allborne had been caught in the web of Margaret Grahame. She had met him at soirées, at balls, at entertainments, and frequently at the opera. She had paused at nothing to create in him a belief that he had obtained the most entire control over her affections. She flattered his vanity by making him imagine that she deemed him an Admirable Crichton, and his weaker and viler propensities by leading him to fancy that beneath her cold exterior there dwelt an ardent passion which would urge her to withhold scarcely any favour to him whom she so well affected.
The party given this night was solely on his account; a conference between mother and daughter having led to the belief on both sides that an éclaircissement could be brought about—that, in short, the Duke could be made successfully to acknowledge that he had been fairly hooked—that he was prepared to bestow the ring and coronet, and confess to captivity for life; his chains being those forged by Margaret Claverhouse Grahame.
Charley Clinton had at first some difficulty to obtain an interview with Mr. Grahame. The guests had not yet arrived, and Mr. Grahame was said to be very busy in his library. The usual method of palming had, however, the desired effect. After some pro and con., and when Mr. Grahame understood that the gentleman who desired to see him was from the solicitors of Nathan Gomer, he had a shrewd suspicion of the object of his visit, and to save any chance of exposure by refusing to see him, he ordered him to be admitted.
When Charley entered, Mr. Grahame received him in his haughtiest and grandest manner, and motioned him to a seat. Charley, however, declined it, and opened the purport of his visit in a manner which was calculated to have its weight with Grahame.
He did not for a moment assume that pecuniary inability to comply with the demand upon Mr. Grahame by Nathan Gomer was the true occasion of the issuing of process, but that some disputed point had led to a determination to proceed to a trial to decide the question at issue. Mr. Grahame, therefore, received the writs with more apparent complacency than he would have done; tendering, as an explanation for not writing in answer to the renewal of the application for a settlement of Nathan Gomer’s claim, that he had been out of town, an assertion which Charley knew to be false.
Mr. Grahame gave a scarcely perceptible shiver when he received the writs, but he made an unequivocal start, when Charley said—
“There is said to be in existence a deed, Mr. Grahame, professing to be a waiver in your favour to Mr. Wilton’s claim to the Eglinton estates, and bearing his signature. Can you throw any light upon the subject?”
“Pray, may I ask your reason for putting that question?” said Mr. Grahame, loftily.
“Mr. Wilton denies the signature, and has instructed us to discover the deed, if possible.”
Mr. Grahame felt the roots of his hair vibrate.
“Upon what ground do you assume such a deed to be in existence?” he asked, striving to appear calm.
“It is registered,” replied Clinton.
Mr. Grahame remained silent; his lips trembled; he could not have spoken if he would.
“There can be no doubt that there either is or was such a deed,” continued Charley, “or that, under the most positive and vehement denials of Mr. Wilton, the signature it bears is a forgery. It is assumed therefore, sir, directly by Mr. Wilton and indirectly by Mr. Nathan Gomer, that the instrument, being exclusively in your interest, could scarcely have had the false signature attached without your cognizance.”
Mr. Grahame felt as though a poisoned barb had pierced his soul. It was not alone that the surmise was just that he winced under the accusation, but his pride was acutely wounded at the readiness with which he was connected with an act so base.
With blanched cheeks, but a cold and haughty manner, he said, with knitted brows—
“When the deed of which you have spoken—if such there is—be produced, it will be time to discuss the truth or falsity of so foul an imputation.”
“When Mr. Wilton was sued by you, sir, for a large sum,” returned Charley, gravely, “the very instrument of which I speak was tendered to him to sign. He did not sign it, and yet that deed has been registered as being completed. I believe—though I cannot speak with exact certainty—that Mr. Nathan Gomer derived his information on this head from a scoundrel name d Chewkle.”
Mr. Grahame’s hair slowly lifted up.
“Chewkle?” he breathed faintly.
“Yes,” replied Charley, observing the ghastly paleness which had spread itself over Mr. Grahame’s visage; “a mercenary wretch, who would pause at no employment, however villanous. In proof of which I may tell you—although I may be stepping out of my path of strict duty in doing so—that a telegraphic message had just reached our office, with the terrible news that the ruffian Chewkle, of whom I have just spoken, encountering, early this morning, Mr. Wilton in the woods at Harley dale, discharged a pistol at him, and severely wounded him. He was seized in the attempt to consummate the murderous act, and is at the present moment in safe custody. It is expected he will make some important revelations.”
A rush of ringing sounds surged through Mr. Grahame’s brain; his eyes dilated, and glared at Charley with a frightful expression. The veins upon his temples swelled as though they would burst, and his throat expanded and contracted with a horrible spasmodic action.
Charley took a step towards him, alarmed by his agitation, but Mr. Grahame waved him imperiously off. He wiped the large drops of clammy perspiration, thickly clustered, from his brow, and in a hoarse voice said, hastily—
“But Wilton—Wilton—is he dead?”
“No,” returned Charley, trembling under a terrible suspicion; he yet lives. “The communication stated his wound to be severe, but not fatal. However, his son has just quitted London to proceed to his bedside, accompanied by an eminent surgeon——”
“His son—what son?” gasped Grahame, in a hollow tone,
“His eldest child, and only son. He has not long since returned to England from South America,” returned Charley. “I fortunately met with him on my way hither, and informed him of what had taken place. He at once proceeded to obtain a surgeon of great skill, and, upon securing his services, he intended that together they should immediately hasten to Harleydale.”
Mr. Grahame sank into a chair. It was plain he was in the throes of a violent spasm. Charley was pained to see his agonized prostration. He had already gone farther than, in his capacity, he ought strictly to have done. He knew that, for the advantage of his firm, he ought not to have revealed what he had disclosed; but it had been for Evangeline’s sake he had been thus communicative; and he was at the same time convinced that the actual interests of Wilton and Gomer had not been compromised by his act. In truth, he could not refrain from preparing Mr. Grahame, in some degree, for the bursting of the dense and threatening cloud hanging over his head.
He gazed with saddened commiseration upon the stupified man who sat before him, with clasped hands, gazing wildly into vacancy; and then in a soft, kindly tone, he said—
“I will no longer obtrude my presence, sir, upon you. I feel that it is as unwelcome as the tidings I have communicated. Yet, before I depart, permit me to suggest that your opposition to the claim of Mr. Nathan Gomer can be but of brief duration, while the expense of going to trial will be enormous. Mr. Gomer’s securities are so indisputable that a jury would be certain to give a verdict in his favour, and the Court would unhesitatingly grant instant execution. Pardon me, if I appear officious or impertinent by my suggestions; I have no such intent; I am only sincerely desirous of acquainting you with the aspect affairs are assuming; and I would so prepare you that you may know how to properly confront them.”
In Charley’s voice there was a tone of genuine sympathy which there was no mistaking or misunderstanding; and the heart of the criminal must have been callous indeed could it have resisted its softening influences. Mr. Grahame was too unused to it to remain unaffected by it. At one time he would have spurned its display, now it fell like balm upon his burning thoughts. He rose up suddenly and wrung Charley’s hand, and then, with an almost frantic gesture, he waved to him to leave.
Charley bowed and quitted the library with a heavy weight about his heart. As he closed the door and prepared to pass along the corridor, he paused for an instant.
“And this it is,” he muttered, “to live in splendour, in pomp, and proud luxury. How magnificent, how superb to gaze at! what foul festering corrosion beneath! How I have longed to achieve such a position as this! but oh, how I should shrink from it if it were to be only obtained on the conditions which are throttling the proud head of this house, and hurling him into earthly, if not eternal perdition.”
While the last words were on his lips he heard the rustling of silk in his vicinity. He stood aside to allow the coming female to pass, and almost the next instant he saw the fair sweet face of Evangeline looking up to his own. She stopped in evident surprise.
“You here, Mr. Clinton,” she said, in a low tone of astonishment; then she added, hastily, “have you heard anything of my sister Helen—have you come to bring me tidings of her?”
She was full dressed; her attire, mainly composed of faint blue, silver and lace, was eminently suited to her fair complexion; upon her head she wore a wreath of white star-like flowers, and in Charley’s eyes she seemed to be one of those exquisitely lovely fairy spirits of whom with such passionate interest he had read in German legends.
He sighed as he thought how hopelessly she was out of the pale of his companionship, but he concealed the emotion the thought occasioned. He merely raised his finger warningly, and said, in a very low voice—“I am most loth to affright or afflict you, dear Miss Grahame, but there is a storm hovering over your house; and, unless I am greatly deceived, it will burst with a terrible crash almost immediately. I cannot—dare not—explain myself, but I would have you prepared when the bolt does fall. I would have you call up your energies and sustain yourself under the trial. At least I would not have it descend upon you without preparation or warning. I cannot avert it, but I may be able to be of service in the hour of your affliction; you know how to summon me; fear not but I will appear at your bidding.”
He cast one passionate glance upon her beautiful countenance, overspread with a terrified amazement, and hurried away, for once more the rustling of silks announced the approach of females, and Evangeline almost ran into the reception-room, to avoid the scrutiny of her mother and sister.
The dinner party was large and brilliant. Mr. Grahame, dressed as it seemed with studied care, presided. The company were unusually animated. The Honorable Lester Vane was present, though uninvited by Mrs. Grahame or her husband; but the Duke of St. Allborne had been honoured with a carte-blanche for friends, who might add to the distinguished character of the assembly, and with a particular motive he had used his privilege to bring Vane with him. The latter accepted his offer, for he had his motives too, and despite the omission of his name from the list of the formally invited, he made his appearance. Looking Mrs. Grahame defiantly in the eyes, when she received him with stiff politeness, he deprecated in studied words—every one of which stung her to the quick—any apology for the oversight; as he expressed himself certain the unfortunate circumstances attendant upon the absence of her eldest daughter had naturally disturbed her usually calm and retentive memory.
He looked sallow and savage; his large dark eyes glittered like a tiger’s upon the spring. There was a dull red mark upon his forehead, where Hugh Rivers dale’s blow had fallen, when he felled him to the earth, and he apparently took no pains to conceal it. He seemed to wear it as a badge of distinction, that might attract all eyes and many questions, enabling him thus to answer them in terms which would tear all Mrs. Grahame’s panoply of pride into shreds, and trample them scornfully under foot.
How troubled she felt on seeing him!—how disqustedly she listened to his words!—with what sickening apprehension she gazed upon the cicatrised wound upon his forehead! She felt, as he passed into the room beyond, that her expectations of a proud triumph were likely to be turned into torturing anticipations of shame and degradation.
Her pride now changed her from a Juno to an Ate. There was no telling into what extravagances, during this man’s presence, it might hurry her.
As Lester Vane sauntered on, he caught sight of Evangeline, who looked pale and abstracted. He advanced towards her, and spoke to her with low musical tones. He bent his eyes upon her with the fascination of a serpent’s gaze, but she shrank from him in undisguised aversion—horrified aversion—there could certainly be no mistaking the expression; so decided was it in character, that he, in the fullness of his immeasurable conceit, actually looked over his shoulder, expecting there to see some hugely-moustached, be-whiskered object as the real cause of her disgust, but there was no one but himself to fasten upon, and he grated his teeth at the conviction.
“Sweet Miss Evangeline,” he lisped, “I hail our réunion with a gratification I am unable to express.”
He tendered his hand, but she recoiled from it and him as though he were indeed a noxious reptile. Helen had spoken of him to her in hot and blistering words. She now feared and loathed him.
She moved hastily to the side of her mother, and Lester Vane, muttering an oath, sallied into the reception-room.
The dinner was announced—was eaten; and, at a somewhat late hour, dancing commenced. Lester Vane sought Evangeline for a partner. She distinctly declined to dance with him, and he turned away infuriated.
Not that she danced at all: her brain was in a whirl of confusion. She was alarmed by the agitation displayed by her mother, who, flushed and excited as she had never seen her before, followed Lester Vane like a shadow; and, whenever he commenced conversation with a group of guests, interposed and broke it up, to follow him still.
She was much startled and nervously frightened, too, by her father’s aspect. He seemed to walk like a somnambulist through the saloons. He appeared to be wandering as in search of some one, and eventually he disappeared.
The admirable quadrille band played its most enlivening airs, and the dancing went on with spirit.
Evangeline looked among the dancers for her sister Margaret; for, in spite of her repellant coldness, she thought that she would lend an ear to her forebodings respecting both parents. Indeed, she was growing distracted; for, what with Charles Clinton’s vague warning, her father’s ghastly aberration, and her mother’s flushed excitement, she felt each coming instant would produce some event of a frightful kind.
But Margaret was not to be seen; Evangeline searched the saloons in vain.
No; she was in the garden, with a thick shawl muffled round her, listening to the pleadings of the Duke of St. Allborne.
What had they been saying to each other?
“The jeuce take the wauld!” cried the Duke. “You will be my Duchess some day, and you will be coawted and feted as othaw Duchesses and Countawesses have befaw you, who have had the spiwit to seize such a glowious oppawtunity as this!”
Margaret hesitated a moment.
The coronet danced in her eyes—to part with him now was to lose that bauble.
“I will go with you, St. Allborne,” she said, in a trembling tone.
“My angel!” said the Duke, enrapturedly.
The woman rose up in her heart at last. She laid upon his arm her gloved and jewelled hand.
“You will be faithful and kind to me, and always love me, St. Allborne?” she faltered; yet the words were uttered with anxious earnestness.
“Love you, my pwecious little wogue,” he responded, with nervous excitement, though he had no ultimate intention of keeping his promise, “why I adaw you now, and when you weveal to me the disintawested chawacter of youaw love faw me by living with me until the distwessing hut wigowous impediments to ouaw mawiage aw wemoved, what can I do but waw-ship you. Come, let us be off befaw we aw missed from the ball-woom.”
He folded her shawl tightly round her trembling frame, and, placing his arms close about her waist, he drew her to the same spot from whence Hugh Riversdale had conveyed her sister Helen away.
They stood upon the brink of the winding stream, so charming in its ornamental character, so facile for mischief. At a signal from the Duke, a boat swiftly appeared. A boat-cloak was handed up by the man in charge of the boat, and Margaret was closely muffled in it; she was then lifted into the small vessel, and the Duke stepped lightly in after her—one moment more, and the boat glided silently but swiftly away.
The lights streamed brilliantly from the windows of the villa mansion. Strains of joyous music issued from the crowded saloons, and in noisy hilarity the dancers whirled with rapid steps round the gorgeously decorated apartments. All within their scope seemed to be instinct with joy and happiness.
When the boat disappeared, there came from the shadow of the trees in the garden the figure of a man.
It was Mr. Grahame. He had wandered as in a dream from the heated rooms thronged with gay visitors, not one of whom he cared for or who cared for him, and while leaning thoughtfully, brooding over his desperate position, against a tree, he had witnessed the meeting of the Duke and his daughter Margaret.
He cared not to interrupt them, but glided back into his house like a thief; no one observed him enter. He slunk to his dressing-room; his valet was not there. He hastily divested himself of his full-dress habiliments, and put on some plain clothing. When thus attired he crept down the servants’ staircase, darted through the basement passage, and passed unobserved, by the servants’ entrance, into the front of his mansion, and made his way through the throng of carriages assembled there.
He went on through the Regent’s Park up towards Hampstead, passed over its dreary heath—the earth and shrubs looking black beneath the gloomy sky.
He paused when he reached the “Castle,” and turned his bloodshot eyes towards the spot he had left thus abruptly and secretly. He shuddered, and struck down the hill towards Hendon, passing, with shivering frame and tottering steps, along the narrow pathway between the prickly, scrubby heath-bushes.
“I have been advised,” he muttered, “never to inhale chloroform, as it would inevitably prove fatal to me. It is well my chemist included it in the articles in my medicine chest; it will afford me an easy release from life and its horrors, and, if I manage well, leave no clue to the manner of my death.”
At a lone spot, by the side of a pool, he sat him down, and bowing his head upon his knees, pressed his hands upon his scorching forehead, and wept scalding, bitter, bitter tears.
Thee will I bear to a lovely spot,
Where our hands shall be joined, and our sorrows forgot;
There thou yet shall be my bride.
Byron.
It is, unhappily, the nature of jealousy to magnify small things into great ones, and to build upon the flimsiest supposition a series of incidents inflaming to the brain of the jaundiced thinker, but which, nevertheless, have no foundation in fact. Unfortunately, the jealous too often act upon these probabilities as if they had really happened, and in the paroxysms of rage and agony created by unworthy visions, reason takes to flight, and the worst extravagances are the result.
This was the case with Colonel Mires. He had assumed interviews between Flora and young Vivian which had never taken place. His prurient mind, not improved by his residence in India, had wrought out love passages which had not occurred, and he groaned, gnashed his teeth, and even wept with agony.
That he passionately loved Flora, even unto frenzy, was beyond a doubt, and that it worked him up to a pitch of insanity is equally true, as his recent conduct proved. In India, in command of a native regiment, his power was great—he was, in a small sphere, a monarch; in England, he felt curbed, trammelled, shackled, and if he had not had an Indian servant, in close attendance, to expend that love and inordinate desire for supreme command upon, he would have been constantly committing some outrageous outbreak of temper, which, of necessity, would have often precipitated him into trouble.
He chafed at the restraint the state of society in England placed upon him; and when it was impossible to conceal from himself that he was the veriest slave to Flora’s beauty, he was infuriate to find that his wish, no less than his will, went for nothing in effecting a result in which the happiness or misery of his whole future life was involved.
The confession of love for Vivian, which Flora had made to her father, and the expressed determination of old Wilton to give her hand to the Honorable Lester Vane, scattered any floating delusive hopes he might have entertained. He saw that she could only become his by some bold act of villany, perpetrated regardless of all consequences attendant upon its frustration.
He formed a plan with subtlety, and made his arrangements with skill. He went over the whole distance between Harleydale and Southampton carefully, making a chart of the bye-ways. He provided relays of horses at unfrequented spots; and at every house, where it would be necessary to rest for the night or stay for refreshment, he palmed off on the host a story that his task was the distressing one of conveying a young lady, afflicted with raving insanity, to an asylum for lunatics. Every minute detail of the plan was carefully considered before adoption, and every possible contingency foreseen and provided against.
There was one exception!
It did not strike Colonel Mires that he was distrusted, suspected of evil machinations, and was, therefore, closely watched.
Such a probability was omitted from his calculations. How, in fact, was he to conjecture that Nathan Gomer, having perused his physiognomy carefully, while Vivian was replying to the charges he had made against him, had formed a conclusion most unfavourable to him; that, in short, the shrewd little man had believed he read in the workings of his features a strong determination to commit an evil deed, by which Vivian directly and Flora indirectly would be made to suffer.
Yet such was the fact; and Nathan Gomer was not the man to pause in doubt when he suspected evil. Having several agents in his pay, he instructed one upon whom he could rely, and from that moment Colonel Mires went nowhere abroad without an unknown attendant, of whose existence he was unconscious, but who dogged his footsteps with untiring pertinacity.
The scheme of the abduction was, therefore, by the revelations of his agent gradually unfolded to Nathan Gomer; who let the arrangements of the Colonel proceed until the culminating point was at hand; when he communicated with young Vivian; and placed in his hands the power—as he calculated—of appearing upon the scene at a moment of vital importance to Flora; and of appearing once more before old Wilton as the saviour of his daughter’s honour as he had been of her life.
Hal Vivian was visited by Nathan Gomer as he was making preparation to leave England; to fulfil a short engagement offered him on high terms in the United States, the acceptance of which had been pressed, upon him by the first manufacturing goldsmith in England. The communication he received altered his plan, although it happened that he reached Harleydale too late to prevent Flora being carried off; but yet in time to save the life of Wilton.
Thus it fell out. Upon reaching the village of Harleydale; he had an interview with Gomer’s agent, who told him that a close carriage belonging to Colonel Mires was in a bye-lane contiguous to Harleydale park; and the Colonel himself was somewhere up in the woods; lying in wait; it was supposed; for Flora; in order to carry his project into execution. It was arranged that the agent should watch the carriage; and Hal should go up into the woods and hunt up the Colonel. The result of this arrangement has been seen. He saved old Wilton from the murderous weapon of Chewkle, and the Colonel got safely off with Flora, for the agent had to rush back to the village, when he saw Flora conveyed senseless to the carriage, to mount a horse—already provided—to follow the vehicle, that he might, at the first place where assistance was to be obtained, stop the further progress of the outrage upon Miss Wilton’s liberty.
He left a note for Vivian, who obtained from it information of the direction he was to pursue; and though not much used to riding, his horsemanship, under the impulse which was almost maddening, would have done honour to a steeple-chase rider.
Colonel Mires had had the shrewdness to provide a pair of strong, fleet horses for the start. He instructed his coachman to do the first stage of ten miles at a hand gallop. The man obeyed, even though the roads were heavy, the ruts deep, and the carriage several times was within an ace of being overturned.
The second stage, with fresh horses, was performed in a similar manner, though at a less rate of speed, because the horses were not so good, and, being pushed, all but knocked up at their eighth mile. The third stage was commenced with another relay of horses, and proceeded much at the same rate on a fifteen-mile journey, unchecked and with undiminished speed.
No delay, except changing horses, had taken place from the moment of departure as yet; but the Colonel believing that, when he had placed thirty-five miles between him and Harleydale, accomplishing the distance in four hours, he might with safety pause for a short time in order to give his coachman rest; and himself obtain some refreshment. He determined to do so, and gave his Indian servant orders to that effect.
No pursuer as yet had appeared in sight, nor any sign that, even if Flora had been missed, a clue elucidating the mystery surrounding her abrupt disappearance had been obtained.
Indeed he expected none: in the first place there had not been time; in the second, he had so full a conviction of the successful secrecy of his operations, that he calculated upon being the very last person who would be charged with having anything to do with Flora’s abduction.
Flora had been, soon after the carriage was set in motion, restored by the attentions of the ayah to consciousness, and on opening her eyes gazed wildly round her. It was some little time before she could realise her position. At length the face of Colonel Mires and the motion of the vehicle in which she was seated, supported in the arms of the Indian woman, gave her some notion of her true situation, and rousing herself, she made an effort to recall the past, and then said to Colonel Mires——
“What is the meaning, sir, of this outrage?—how is it that I find myself alone with you and this Indian servant, torn from my home, and borne with frightful rapidity in an unknown direction?”
Colonel Mires turned his inflamed eyes upon her and, in a tone of passionate tenderness, replied—
“Ask your more than mortal beauty and your in difference to my almost more than mortal love for you. Oh! Flora, I cannot see you, cannot know you to be another’s; my adoration for you is without limit; and if I have resorted to a bold step, it is only because my passion for you would pause at nothing to ensure my happiness.”
“You have resorted to a mean and wicked artifice to place me in your power, Colonel Mires!” she exclaimed, awaiting his answer with an intensity of eagerness which it was somewhat remarkable he did not notice.
“All stratagems, it is said, are fair in love-matters,” he replied. “If I adopted one which has occasioned you pain, I regret its action, though I rejoice at its result, for it gave me you. Understand me, sweet Flora, you must be mine—it will be impossible for you to escape that issue; but I shall treat you with the greatest possible respect until we are united. Your dignity shall not be insulted, nor your modesty offended, by act, by word, or look. Every desire or wish you may form, save that of severing yourself from me, shall be gratified. I will be your slave, ministering to your will in all things, except in aught that would take you from me. You will find me scrupulously adhere to this promise in every respect. At the same time, let me inform you that any attempt to release yourself will be futile. My arrangements have been so made that all entreaties and appeals for assistance will be in vain. We are now on our way to Southampton, from thence, by packet, direct to Madeira. Only at appointed places shall we stay; and at each place the persons there are prepared to see with me a young lady of surpassing beauty, but a confirmed lunatic—insane upon the fancy that she is being forcibly abducted from home. I deem it advisable to make you thus much acquainted with my plan to spare you the agony of useless displays. At Funchal, I hope to induce you to become my wife—at least, I will ensure that you shall never be the bride of another.”
He ceased. Flora made no reply. The note which informed her of the sudden death of Mr. Vivian, professing to be written by Mrs. Harper, was a forgery, acknowledged to be such by the Colonel. She cared little for the rest; she had faith in being rescued, or in effecting an escape from the clutches of the scoundrel who had made her prisoner and was bearing her away. She could not conceive how one or the other could be accomplished, but she had no doubt that she would be set free before she was forced on board the ship of which he had spoken. Hal was not dead; she could bear all the rest with comparative equanimity.
As we have said, she did not reply to Mires nor afterwards speak a word in answer to any remark he made or question he put to her. She declined all refreshment, though he pressed her earnestly at the end of the third stage to partake of it, and resisted every inducement to utter a word.
They were well away on the fourth stage, still pursuing unfrequented bye-roads, when the Indian coachman suddenly put his head down to the window, and called, “Sahib!”
His tone was so urgent and startling that Colonel Mires leaped from the recumbent position in which he placed himself for the last hour, watching with an unswerving, ardent gaze the beautiful but saddened face of Flora. He bent his head towards his man, and with a brusque tone demanded what had occurred.
“We are pursued, sahib,” replied the Indian, very decisively.
“Pursued!” echoed the Colonel, rapidly; “by whom?”
The Indian pointed with his whip. They were passing over a hilly tract of land. At a distance of some four or five miles the road wound along a ridge which skirted a steep hill. Pursuing that road at a brisk pace were a couple of horsemen. Mires gazed at them intently; they appeared to him to be taking a course leading in an opposite direction to that in which his carriage was proceeding. He said as much.
The Indian gave a significant shake of the head.
“We came same road as dat, sahib; they are on our track—seen ’em dis half-hour coming same road as us. Tellee true, Sahib.”
The Colonel was, however, disposed to scout the notion that the horsemen were in pursuit of him. How was it possible, he mentally inquired, that any clue as yet could have been obtained to the cause of Flora’s disappearance, and the route he had taken in bearing her off. Suddenly he forced an oath through his teeth, and he broke out in a clammy perspiration. It occurred to him that the villain Chewkle might have betrayed him. No dependence could be placed on mercenaries Experience had taught him that fact: but, under any circumstances, he thought it unadvisable to give away even the shadow of a chance against him. He, therefore, called sharply to his Indian servant—
“Nanoo, push the horses into a smart gallop; we cannot have far to travel ere we reach the stage where we have arranged to rest for a few hours. We shall soon ascertain the purpose of those fellows; if they are really in pursuit, we will prepare for the worst, and stick at nothing. Should the consequences prove fatal to those who attempt to intercept us, the fault will be theirs. I have devoted myself to the accomplishment of my object, and bloodshed will not stay me in effecting it. Lash the horses—lash them—make them fly over the remaining distance—give the brutes the thong—away!”
The Indian obeyed; and the horses, under the application of the whip, administered with an unsparing and unpitying hand, plunged madly forward, snorting and chafing under the smarting cuts savagely dealt upon them.
Their route, now from a level road, lay suddenly down a hill with severe curves in it. Colonel Mires rose up in his seat and looked eagerly after the horsemen, and his brow clouded as he perceived them abruptly leave the main road, and, leaping their horses over a breast-hedge which lined it, strike across country directly towards him.
He sat down muttering an oath; and with indescribable horror Flora perceived him draw from beneath one of the seats a case which, on his opening it, disclosed a couple of handsomely-finished revolvers, each with a long polished single barrel. She saw him examine them carefully to insure their being ready for instant use, and she observed, with apprehension and disgust, that his contracted brows and clenched teeth indicated a most deadly determination.
She felt sick, faint, and dizzy with fear, her terror being proportionably increased by the frightful speed at which she could see, by the passing objects, and tell by the awful rocking, jumping motion of the carriage, they were being borne along.
The Colonel scarcely noticed the tremendous pace into which his servant had lashed the horses—he was in deep conjecture respecting his pursuers. He thought it not improbable Mark Wilton might be one; he hated him, for he had been treated by him with distrust and scarcely concealed dislike; he felt that it would cost him but little repugnance to shoot him; but then he was Flora’s brother, and his blood upon his hands was not calculated to prosper his wooing. Nevertheless, rather than resign Flora, he was resolved not to stop short even at that crime.
He was roused from his reverie by the horrified moans of the ayah, and the sudden outcries of his Indian attendant. He thrust his head out of the carriage window, and saw that the over-driven steeds had been lashed into frenzy, and in their progress down the hill their own impetus, added to the enormously accelerated velocity of the vehicle, unchecked by a drag, had urged them to a speed which was beyond their own control. Giving way to fright, they dashed blindly on, unheeding in their fearful wildness the check which the speedily-alarmed Indian attempted to impose on them the instant he found they were beyond command; but he discovered his mastery was gone, and he soon lost all presence of mind, and shrieked to his master that the horses were flying with them to destruction.
The ayah quickly added her shrieks to the yells of the completely scared Indian; and Mires, with no little consternation, saw the danger in which all were placed, but he was powerless to aid. To open the door and jump out would have been to court death; to remain where he was would be to incur injuries it was impossible to calculate upon. He pulled down the window behind the coachman, and commenced an attempt to crawl through the opening, to gain, if possible, a seat on the box, in the hope that, uniting his strength with that of the Indian, who still clung to the reins, the horses might be pulled up.
He had just advanced his head and shoulders through the window when the carriage was dashed with tremendous force against a tall thick-set hedge, and the Indian was swept like lightning from the box. The ayah shrieked frantically, and Flora at the shock fainted away. The horses plunged and kicked in the madness of terror, and tore the carriage wheels through the impediments opposed to their progress; they bounded forward in their impetuous career, and swept down the hill with more tremendous rapidity than ever. Within a hundred yards the road took a sharp, abrupt turn; facing the horses stood the stone ruins of an ancient building. Under no control, completely blind in their frantic terror, they kept on their distracted way, swerving only by their own infuriate motions, but turning not as the sharp wind of the road came upon them.
With a terrific crash they dashed into the ruins, killing themselves, and shattering the carriage to atoms in one fearful and fatal collision.
In the meantime the two horsemen, who, as it may be surmised, were Hal Vivian and Nathan Gomer’s agent, whom he had overtaken, were fast approaching the scene of the disastrous accident. The fugitives would have been overtaken before they had reached so far, but for the delay in getting fresh steeds. As it was, Hal was almost knocked up with fatigue, save that the intensity of his anxiety for Flora’s safety prevented his feeling the physical exhaustion he would otherwise have done. He would have kept on until he had dropped rather than risk the possibility of losing her by even a necessary delay for rest and refreshment.
Having, from the ridge spoken of, when the attention of Colonel Mires was first drawn to his pursuers; perceived the flying vehicle; at Hal’s bold suggestion, he and his companion leaped the hedge skirting the road; and made their way by the direct line instead of pursuing the circuitous path. The difficulties they had encountered were many, but nearly half the distance was saved; and they at length—after leaping gullies and hedges, wading streams, and forcing a way through part of a plantation, one tangle of undergrowth—emerged at the brow of the hill down which the carriage containing Flora had been whirled to annihilation.
At this spot there was a cross-road, but the fresh print of the carriage-wheels in the soft, sandy, moist soil directed them to the right route, and they spurred their steeds down the declivity, but with more caution than the miserable Nanoo had done. Suddenly Hal’s companion reined in his steed, and jumped off his horse. He picked up a whip, and held it up.
“Here is a sign we are on the right track,” he said, “the blacky has dropped his whip.”
On to his horse, and away again. Not more than a hundred yards further, both pulled in their steeds at one impulse. A garment lay in the middle of the road.
The agent again dismounted, and picked up a loose great-coat. Then he ran his eye along the road.
“My God!” he cried, “an accident has happened. Look at the swaying track of the wheels; their horses have bolted with them, and they have all been upset. Come on.”
He vaulted into his saddle as he spoke, and on they went again—Hal’s heart beating almost audibly, in fear that an accident could only be fraught with some frightful and fatal injury to Flora.
They had not proceeded far when the body of the Indian was discovered lifeless upon the roadway. He had been struck with tremendous violence by the arm of a tree, and hurled like lightning to the ground.
It was so evident that he was dead, that neither attempted to dismount, but both pressed on in silence. The agony of Vivian it is impossible to depict—large drops of cold perspiration stood upon his forehead, his features had become livid, and his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. His breast heaved, and his breath went and came in short spasms—he felt as if he should suffocate. A dreadful presentiment chilled his blood, and made his marrow almost freeze in his bones. He feared to encounter the sight he anticipated to be awaiting him, and yet he felt that his steed seemed only to proceed at too slow a pace.
And now they reached the ruins.
Hal uttered a cry of grief and consternation.
Upon the ground lay the shattered fragments of the carriage; amid the débris of broken wall and dismantled masses of stone were both horses, frightfully lacerated, and bleeding from the desperate wounds inflicted by their terrific collision.
The body of the carriage, which had been forced half through a low, dilapidated archway, appeared to have been, owing to some large blocks of stone on the ground beneath, crushed by the hyperthyrion of the ruined doorway, and compressed to almost half its natural height, the splintered fragments sticking out here and there showing how tremendous had been the collision, how frightful the destruction.
Both men leaped from their saddles in an instant, and fastening their horses hastily at a short distance from the spot—for both animals started and betrayed symptoms of terror, either at the scent of blood or the confusion before them—they hastened to the carriage.
The silence of the dead reigned around—not even a groan from within the jambed and crushed vehicle gave token of life still remaining in the frames of those whom Hal knew it yet contained.
With almost superhuman strength, Hal forced open the twisted, bent, and partly-shattered door. A hurried, sickening glance showed him the mangled body of Colonel Mires, half in the carriage and half buried in the broken box-seat, his head and shoulders hidden from view by the splinters and ruins of that part of the vehicle.
Doubled up at the bottom of the carriage appeared the forms of two senseless females; with a groan of acute agony, he wound his arms tenderly about one of them, and with great difficulty, because of his gentleness, he contrived to liberate her.
He bore her away from the spot, to a small patch of grass, and there gently laid her down, and bent over to see if any sign of life remained.
It was Flora whom he had thus rescued, and who, without a token of life, lay motionless—the very reality it seemed of death in as fair a form as was ever presented to mortal eye.
Hal knelt by her in a state of frenzy—his eyes inflamed, his throat swollen; he appeared the incarnation of despair. So intense was his emotion, that he was wholly without power to move.
The agent bent over the prostrate form of the senseless girl, and regarded her face with scrutinising eyes. He, though agitated, was of course not so deeply affected as his companion, and he exclaimed—
“She’s alive—she has only fainted, rub her hands briskly, she’ll come too directly—I don’t believe she is hurt, she has been frightened into a swoon.”
The man commenced actively chafing her hands as he spoke. Hal, who had seemed paralysed, now followed his example. The friction upon her palms and the cool air which played upon her pallid features had the desired effect, and shortly her eyelids began to work tremulously, then she uttered a deep-drawn sigh and opened her eyes.
With a sudden motion she rose half up, looked wildly round her, her dim sight took in the face of the agent; she turned from him with a shudder, and her eyes fell upon Hal’s intensely anxious face, within a foot of her own. A low cry escaped her lips.
“Hal! Hal!” she exclaimed, in a tone of doubt, yet of strong hope.
“It is even I, dear Flora,” he ejaculated, hoarsely, through his parched lips.
She flung her arms about his neck, and cried, passionately—
“Save me! save me! Hal, save me!”
“You are saved,” he murmured, almost inaudibly; and burying his face on her shoulder, gave way to a paroxysm of scalding tears.
It was but for a moment that this weakness overcame him. Had he not suffered the gush of emotion to have its course, he had fallen back in a fit.
He sprang to his feet, and raising up Flora, conducted her to his horse. He called to his companion the agent, and bade him remain at the scene of disaster until he sent up help to him; and, as there was yet some three miles to traverse before he could reach the house—a lone one—where it had been Colonel Mires’ intention to stay for some hours, if not all night, he mounted his horse, and placing Flora before him, went at an easy canter from the terrible spot.
Oh, that short ride of three miles. Never before did he experience such unalloyed happiness as he enjoyed during the brief term occupied in proceeding from the place of accident to the inn.
Flora, saved from a horrible death, was in his arms—his left encircled her small waist, and her two soft hands met and clasped about his neck. Her now flushed cheek rested against his, and her gentle eyes looked into his own with an expression of loving tenderness and a perfect sense of security.
She was unconscious as yet of the fate of Colonel Mires or his servants. She knew that she had been on the eve of some dreadful accident. She had a shadowy sense of a violent crash, but nothing more. She had no wish to learn what had really happened. It was enough to know that she had been wrested from the villanous custody of Colonel Mires and by Hal—that was all she cared for, she sought for no more information: and Vivian, who was pretty well acquainted with the details, forbore, in her highly nervous state, to shock her by repeating them to her.
On reaching the inn, Hal despatched the landlord and some men to the spot where Colonel Mires had met his fate; and upon making inquiries learned that at no great distance was the main coach-road, leading to Dorset, and there was a posting-house at which he could obtain a carriage and post-horses to return to Harleydale.
He was anxious to quit the inn, for Flora’s sake, before the dead bodies were brought in. He submitted to her that it would be desirable to return to Harleydale without delay, and she readily assented to anything which he believed to be for the best. Leaving his tired steed, and having procured a seat for both in a country grocer’s light cart, they were driven over to the roadside inn named, and there, having partaken of some slight refreshment, set out in a post-chaise on their return to Harleydale.
As yet Hal had not mentioned to Flora a word respecting the condition of her father. It was his intention, when her mind became more calm, to prepare her for the event which had taken place.
By mutual consent it seemed that they banished all unpleasant matters, and reverted to that which was alone of absorbing interest to both—their love for each other. Even this subject stole by degrees only into the first place in their conversation; and then Hal honestly and honourably placed before her his true position, together with the views of the future which he entertained, and what probation he must necessarily pass before he might dare to look for the realisation of the hope first in his heart of hearts. In doing this he sketched the relation in which she stood to him, pointed out how wide apart their present stations were, and his own keen sense of the fact, so that, should she bend obedient to her father’s anxious wish to wed her to one of her own rank, he felt it would be unmanly in him to blame her, that it would indeed be ungenerous to think even harshly of her for taking the step; and if—notwithstanding her present impressions—she fancied that she would eventually be happier in uniting herself with the object of her father’s choice, it would be his duty, loving her so truly as he did, to stand from her path, that she might ensure happiness on earth, no matter what might be his own fate.
Flora stayed his speech. She leaned her head upon his shoulder, and placed her hand in his—
“I love you Hal,” she said; “I answer all your suggestions and my father’s pleadings and commands in those words. I will give my hand to no other, if not to you; and, oh! Hal,” she cried, with an impetuous burst of feeling, “I will cast away all the wealth which is to be mine, the station and its luxuries, to share your fate, whatever it may be—if you will have me. I look with fright and horror upon any other future. I can endure anything with you, submit with a smile to the frowns of fate, bear cheerfully any ills which may arise—you know, Hal, poverty ought not to scare me—I can bear troubles and trials with you, I can bear nothing if I am to be torn from you and given to another.”
“My own darling Flora!” cried Hal, pressing her tenderly to his heart.
A flush of heat rushed to his forehead and his cheeks. His heart beat rapidly, for it occurred to him that he had but to ask her now to return no more to her father’s home, but to give to him at once her hand, and thus set the machinations or the claims of all other lovers at defiance.
It was a fearful moment of temptation.
He drew a long breath.
“Will you not, Flora, marry Lester Vane?” he said, in an undertone of deep earnestness.
“I will die first, Hal,” she replied, with equal fervour.
He pressed his hands to his throbbing temples. He laid his clenched fist upon his wildly-beating heart. He thought of Flora’s beauty and her tenderness. Then he thought, too, of her guileless innocence.
A fearful struggle ensued between love, honour and duty.
She would fly with him and give her hand to him at a word. That he knew.
He so adored her, and his chances of obtaining her, save by elopement, were so very, very remote.
The temptation was a sore one to wrestle with.