She laid the letter aside, and thought no more about it, beyond a
momentary meditation on the errors into which people fall in reasoning
from actions to motives. Louis, who was now again with her, became in
due course acquainted with the contents of the letter, and was satisfied
with the promising position in which matters seemingly stood all round.
Lady Constantine went her mournful ways as she had planned to do, her
chief resort being the familiar column, where she experienced the
unutterable melancholy of seeing two carpenters dismantle the dome of its
felt covering, detach its ribs, and clear away the enclosure at the top
till everything stood as it had stood before Swithin had been known to
the place. The equatorial had already been packed in a box, to be in
readiness if he should send for it from abroad. The cabin, too, was in
course of demolition, such having been his directions, acquiesced in by
her, before he started. Yet she could not bear the idea that these
structures, so germane to the events of their romance, should be removed
as if removed for ever. Going to the men she bade them store up the
materials intact, that they might be re-erected if desired. She had the
junctions of the timbers marked with figures, the boards numbered, and
the different sets of screws tied up in independent papers for
identification. She did not hear the remarks of the workmen when she had
gone, to the effect that the young man would as soon think of buying a
halter for himself as come back and spy at the moon from Rings-Hill
Speer, after seeing the glories of other nations and the gold and jewels
that were found there, or she might have been more unhappy than she was.
On returning from one of these walks to the column a curious circumstance
occurred. It was evening, and she was coming as usual down through the
sighing plantation, choosing her way between the ramparts of the camp
towards the outlet giving upon the field, when suddenly in a dusky vista
among the fir-trunks she saw, or thought she saw, a golden-haired,
toddling child. The child moved a step or two, and vanished behind a
tree. Lady Constantine, fearing it had lost its way, went quickly to the
spot, searched, and called aloud. But no child could she perceive or
hear anywhere around. She returned to where she had stood when first
beholding it, and looked in the same direction, but nothing reappeared.
The only object at all resembling a little boy or girl was the upper tuft
of a bunch of fern, which had prematurely yellowed to about the colour of
a fair child's hair, and waved occasionally in the breeze. This,
however, did not sufficiently explain the phenomenon, and she returned to
make inquiries of the man whom she had left at work, removing the last
traces of Swithin's cabin. But he had gone with her departure and the
approach of night. Feeling an indescribable dread she retraced her
steps, and hastened homeward doubting, yet half believing, what she had
seemed to see, and wondering if her imagination had played her some
trick.
The tranquil mournfulness of her night of solitude terminated in a most
unexpected manner.
The morning after the above-mentioned incident Lady Constantine, after
meditating a while, arose with a strange personal conviction that bore
curiously on the aforesaid hallucination. She realized a condition of
things that she had never anticipated, and for a moment the discovery of
her state so overwhelmed her that she thought she must die outright. In
her terror she said she had sown the wind to reap the whirlwind. Then
the instinct of self-preservation flamed up in her like a fire. Her
altruism in subjecting her self-love to benevolence, and letting Swithin
go away from her, was demolished by the new necessity, as if it had been
a gossamer web.
There was no resisting or evading the spontaneous plan of action which
matured in her mind in five minutes. Where was Swithin? how could he be
got at instantly?--that was her ruling thought. She searched about the
room for his last short note, hoping, yet doubting, that its contents
were more explicit on his intended movements than the few meagre
syllables which alone she could call to mind. She could not find the
letter in her room, and came downstairs to Louis as pale as a ghost.