No horror of her solitude, no melancholy recollections, no dread of the
future disturbed Sydney’s mind. The one sense left in her was the sense
of fatigue. Vacantly, mechanically, the girl rested as a tired animal
might have rested. She saw nothing, heard nothing; the one feeling
of which she was conscious was a dull aching in every limb. The moon
climbed the heavens, brightened the topmost leaves of the trees, found
the gloom in which Sydney was hidden, and cheered it tenderly with
radiant light. She was too weary to sleep, too weary even to shade her
face when the moonbeams touched it. While the light still strengthened,
while the slow minutes still followed each other unheeded, the one
influence that could rouse Sydney found her at last--set her faint heart
throbbing--called her prostrate spirit to life again. She heard a glad
cry of recognition in a child’s voice:
“Oh, Sydney, dear, is it you?”
In another instant her little pupil and playfellow of former days was in
her arms.
“My darling, how did you come here?”
Susan answered the question. “We are on our way back from the Palace,
miss. I am afraid,” she said, timidly, “that we ought to go in.”
Silently resigned, Sydney tried to release the child. Kitty clung to
her and kissed her; Kitty set the nurse at defiance. “Do you think I am
going to leave Syd now I have found her? Susan, I am astonished at you!”
Susan gave way. Where the nature is gentle, kindness and delicacy go
hand-in-hand together, undisturbed by the social irregularities which
beset the roadway of life. The nursemaid drew back out of hearing.
Kitty’s first questions followed each other in breathless succession.
Some of them proved to be hard, indeed, to answer truly, and without
reserve. She inquired if Sydney had seen her mother, and then she was
eager to know why Sydney had been left in the garden alone.
“Why haven’t you gone back to the house with mamma?” she asked.
“Don’t ask me, dear,” was all that Sydney could say. Kitty drew the
inevitable conclusion: “Have you and mamma quarreled?”
“Oh, no!”
“Then come indoors with me.”
“Wait a little, Kitty, and tell me something about yourself. How do you
get on with your lessons?”
“You dear foolish governess, do you expect me to learn my lessons, when
I haven’t got you to teach me? Where have you been all this long while?
_I_ wouldn’t have gone away and left _you!_” She paused; her eager eyes
studied Sydney’s face with the unrestrained curiosity of a child. “Is it
the moonlight that makes you look pale and wretched?” she said. “Or are
you really unhappy? Tell me, Syd, do you ever sing any of those songs
that I taught you, when you first came to us?”
“Never, dear!”
“Have you anybody to go out walking with you and running races with you,
as I did?”
“No, my sweet! Those days have gone by forever.”
Kitty laid her head sadly on Sydney’s bosom. “It’s not the moonlight,”
she said; “shall I tell you a secret? Sometimes I am not happy either.
Poor papa is dead. He always liked you--I’m sure you are sorry for him.”
Astonishment held Sydney speechless. Before she could ask who had
so cruelly deceived the child, and for what purpose, the nursemaid,
standing behind the chair, warned her to be silent by a touch.
“I think we are all unhappy now,” Kitty went on, still following her own
little train of thought. “Mamma isn’t like what she used to be. And even
my nice Captain hasn’t a word to say to me. He wouldn’t come back with
us; he said he would go back by himself.”
Another allusion which took Sydney by surprise! She asked who the
Captain was. Kitty started as if the question shocked her. “Oh dear,
dear, this is what comes of your going away and leaving us! You don’t
know Captain Bennydeck.”
The name of her father’s correspondent! The name which she vaguely
remembered to have heard in her childhood! “Where did you first meet
with him?” she inquired.
“At the seaside, dear!”
“Do you mean at Sandyseal?”
“Yes. Mamma liked him--and grandmamma liked him (which is
wonderful)--and I gave him a kiss. Promise me not to tell! My nice
Captain is going to be my new papa.”
Was there any possible connection between what Kitty had just said, and
what the poor child had been deluded into believing when she spoke of
her father? Even Susan seemed to be in the secret of this strange second
marriage! She interfered with a sharp reproof. “You mustn’t talk in that
way, Miss Kitty. Please put her off your lap, Miss Westerfield; we have
been here too long already.”
Kitty proposed a compromise; “I’ll go,” she said, “if Syd will come with
me.”
“I’m sorry, my darling, to disappoint you.”
Kitty refused to believe it. “You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried,”
she said boldly.
“Indeed, indeed, I must go away. Oh, Kitty, try to bear it as I do!”
Entreaties were useless; the child refused to hear of another parting.
“I want to make you and mamma friends again. Don’t break my heart,
Sydney! Come home with me, and teach me, and play with me, and love me!”
She pulled desperately at Sydney’s dress; she called to Susan to help
her. With tears in her eyes, the girl did her best to help them both.
“Miss Westerfield will wait here,” she said to Kitty, “while you speak
to your mamma.--Say Yes!” she whispered to Sydney; “it’s our only
chance.”
The child instantly exacted a promise. In the earnestness of her love
she even dictated the words. “Say it after me, as I used to say my
lessons,” she insisted. “Say, ‘Kitty, I promise to wait for you.’”
Who that loved her could have refused to say it! In one form or another,
the horrid necessity for deceit had followed, and was still following,
that first, worst act of falsehood--the elopement from Mount Morven.
Kitty was now as eager to go as she had been hitherto resolute to
remain. She called for Susan to follow her, and ran to the hotel.
“My mistress won’t let her come back--you can leave the garden that
way.” The maid pointed along the path to the left and hurried after the
child.
They were gone--and Sydney was alone again.
At the parting with Kitty, the measure of her endurance was full. Not
even the farewell at Mount Morven had tried her by an ordeal so cruel as
this. No kind woman was willing to receive her and employ her, now. The
one creature left who loved her was the faithful little friend whom
she must never see again. “I am still innocent to that child,” she
thought--“and I am parted from her forever!”
She rose to leave the garden.
A farewell look at the last place in which she had seen Kitty tempted
her to indulge in a moment of delay. Her eyes rested on the turn in the
path at which she had lost sight of the active little figure hastening
away to plead her cause. Even in absence, the child was Sydney’s good
angel still. As she turned away to follow the path that had been shown
to her, the relief of tears came at last. It cooled her burning head;
it comforted her aching heart. She tried to walk on. The tears blinded
her--she strayed from the path--she would have fallen but for a hand
that caught her, and held her up. A man’s voice, firm and deep and kind,
quieted her first wild feeling of terror. “My child, you are not fit to
be by yourself. Let me take care of you--let me comfort you, if I can.”
He carried her back to the seat that she had left, and waited by her in
merciful silence.
“You are very young to feel such bitter sorrow,” he said, when she was
composed again. “I don’t ask what your sorrow is; I only want to know
how I can help you.”
“Nobody can help me.”
“Can I take you back to your friends?”
“I have no friends.”
“Pardon me, you have one friend at least--you have me.”
“You? A stranger?”
“No human creature who needs my sympathy is a stranger.”
She turned toward him for the first time. In her new position, she was
clearly visible in the light. He looked at her attentively. “I have seen
you somewhere,” he said, “before now.”
She had not noticed him when they had passed each other at Sandyseal.
“I think you must be mistaken,” she answered. “May I thank you for your
kindness? and may I hope to be excused if I say good-night?”
He detained her. “Are you sure that you are well enough to go away by
yourself?” he asked anxiously.
“I am quite sure!”
He still detained her. His memory of that first meeting at the seaside
hotel reminded him that he had seen her in the company of a man. At
their second meeting, she was alone, and in tears. Sad experience led
him to form his own conclusions. “If you won’t let me take care of you,”
he said, “will you consider if I can be of any use to you, and will you
call at that address?” He gave her his card. She took it without looking
at it; she was confused; she hardly knew what to say. “Do you doubt me?”
he asked--sadly, not angrily.
“Oh, how can I do that! I doubt myself; I am not worthy of the interest
you feel in me.”
“That is a sad thing to say,” he answered. “Let me try to give you
confidence in yourself. Do you go to London when you leave this place?”
“Yes.”
“To-morrow,” he resumed, “I am going to see another poor girl who is
alone in the world like you. If I tell you where she lives, will you ask
her if I am a person to be trusted?”
He had taken a letter from his pocket, while he was speaking; and he
now tore off a part of the second leaf, and gave it to her. “I have only
lately,” he said, “received the address from a friend.”
As he offered that explanation, the shrill sound of a child’s voice,
raised in anger and entreaty, reached their ears from the neighborhood
of the hotel. Faithful little Kitty had made her escape, determined to
return to Sydney had been overtaken by the maid--and had been carried
back in Susan’s arms to the house. Sydney imagined that she was not
perhaps alone in recognizing the voice. The stranger who had been so
kind to her did certainly start and look round.
The stillness of the night was disturbed no more. The man turned again
to the person who had so strongly interested him. The person was gone.
In fear of being followed, Sydney hurried to the railway station. By the
light in the carriage she looked for the first time at the fragment of
the letter and the card.
The stranger had presented her with her own address! And, when she
looked at the card, the name was Bennydeck!