"Good-night, Hyacinth," Lady Vaughan said, when, half an hour afterward,
the girl went to her with a white face and cold rigid lips; "good-night.
I hope to see you something like yourself to-morrow--you do not seem
well."
And for the last time, Hyacinth Vaughan kissed the fair, stately old
face. "To-morrow--ah, where would she be to-morrow?"
"You have been very kind to me," she murmured, "and I am not
ungrateful."
Afterward Lady Vaughan understood why the girl lingered near her, why
she kissed the withered, wrinkled hands with such passionate tenderness,
why her lips opened as if she would fain speak, and then closed mutely.
She thought of Hyacinth's strange manner for several minutes after the
young girl had quitted the room.
"That terrible news shocked her. She is very sensitive and very
tender-hearted--the Vaughans are all the same. I am heartily glad she is
to marry Adrian: he is gentle enough to understand and firm enough to
manage her. I shall have no more anxiety about the child."
* * * * *
Hyacinth had looked her last on them, and had spoken to them for the
last time. She stood in her room now waiting until there should be a
chance of leaving the hotel unnoticed, then it suddenly struck her how
great would be the consternation on the morrow, when she was missed.
What would Adrian do or say--he who loved her so dearly? She went to her
little desk and wrote a note to him. She addressed it and left it on the
toilet table of her room.
Then she went quietly down-stairs. No one was about. She opened the
great hall-door and went out. Some few people still lingered in the
grounds; she was not noticed. She walked down the long carriage-drive,
and then stood in the street of the little town, alone. She found her
way to the station. A great, despairing cry was rising from her heart to
her lips, but she stifled it, a faint strange sensation, as though life
were leaving her, came over her. She nerved herself.
"I must live until he is free," she said with stern determination--"then
death will be welcome!"
They were no idle words that she spoke; all that life held brightest,
dearest, and best, was past for her. Her only hope was that she might
reach Loadstone in time to save Claude. She knew how soon she would be
missed, and how easily she might be tracked. Suppose that they sent or
went to her room and found it empty, and then made inquiries and learned
that she had taken a ticket for Ostend? They could not overtake the
train, but they could telegraph to Ostend and stop her. In that case she
would be too late to save Claude. The station was full of people. She
saw a lad among them--he seemed to be about fifteen--and she went up to
him.
"Are you going to Ostend?" she asked.
He doffed his hat and bowed.
"I am going by this train," he replied. "Can I be of any service to the
_Fraulein_?"
"I am always nervous in a crowd," she said--"will you buy my ticket?"
He took the money. He could not see her face, for it was veiled, but he
could distinguish its white, rigid mystery, and, full of wonder, he
complied with her request. In a short time he returned with the ticket.
"Can I do anything else for you, _Fraulein_?" he asked.
"No," she replied, thanking him; and all the way to Ostend, the lad
mused over the half-hidden beauty of that face, and the dreary tones of
the sad young voice.
"There is some mystery," he said; and afterward, when he had read the
papers, he knew what the mystery was.
She was safely seated in the furthest corner of a second-class carriage
at last, her heart beating so that each throb seemed to send a thrill of
fiery pain through her. Would she be in time? The train was an express,
and was considered an unusually fast one, but it seemed slow to her--so
slow. Her heart beat fast and her pulse throbbed quickly. Her face
burned as with a flaming fire.
"What shall I do," she thought, with a terrified face, "if I fall ill,
and cannot save him? Suppose--my brain is on fire now--suppose it
becomes worse, and when the train stops I have no sense left to speak?
They will try him--they will sentence him to death before I arrive. He
will perhaps be dead when I am able to speak. What shall I do?" And the
dread so overpowered her that she cried aloud in her anguish.
"Are you ill?" asked a fellow-traveller, kindly.
"No, I was dreaming," she replied, hurriedly.
She pressed her hand on her hot brow--she tried to still the quick
nervous beating of her heart; but all was in vain. The night was hot;
the atmosphere seemed overcharged with electricity; there was not a
breath of air stirring; the noisy clang of the wheels seemed to pierce
her brain; a sound as of rushing torrents filled her ears. She tried to
calm herself--to steady those quivering nerves--to remember what she
would have to say in a short time, when she would be standing before a
tribunal of justice to save Claude's life. She tried and failed in the
effort; she broke down and laughed a strange, unnatural laugh. The noise
of the train drowned it, the monotonous clangor of the wheels dulled all
other sounds. The next minute the overstrained nerves--the over-taxed
brain--had given away, and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
* * * * *
The train drew near to Ostend, and those who loved her had not
discovered Hyacinth's flight. Lady Vaughan wondered she did not come
down as usual to breakfast. Pincott went to see if she was up. She
tapped at the door; there was no answer, and the maid went to tell her
lady. "I am almost glad," said Lady Vaughan; "she looked very ill last
night. She is sleeping; do not awaken her, Pincott."
But when noon came, and Hyacinth had not rung, Pincott went to her room
again. She opened the door this time and walked in. The room was empty,
the bed had not been slept in, and there was no trace of Miss Vaughan.
The woman turned quite white and sunk, half-fainting, on a chair. She
was frightened. Presently, recovering herself a little, she looked
round. "How foolish I am!" she thought. "Miss Vaughan must have gone
down unknown to me and her room has been arranged." Still she trembled
with a strange presentiment of dread. Suddenly her eyes fell upon the
note addressed to Mr. Darcy--it was sealed. "There can be no harm in my
giving him this," she said.
She went down-stairs and made inquiries about Miss Vaughan. No one had
seen her--she could hear nothing of her. Then Pincott went to her lady.
It so happened that Mr. Darcy was chatting with her.
"What do you say?" interrupted Lady Vaughan, sharply. "You cannot find
Miss Vaughan? Pray use your common sense, Pincott; do not say such
absurd things."
But Adrian had caught sight of the note in the maid's hand. "What is
this?" he asked.
"I found it in Miss Vaughan's room, sir," said Pincott; "it is addressed
to you."
He took it from her and opened it. As he read a deadly pallor came over
his face.
"Great Heaven!" he cried. "What can this mean?"
Lady Vaughan asked what had happened. He passed the note to her and she
read:
"I have looked at you and have spoken to you for the last time, Adrian.
I am going away and I shall never see any of you again. You will try to
comfort Lady Vaughan. Pray Heaven my sin and my disgrace may not kill
her.
"You will find out from the newspapers what I have gone to do; and oh,
my lost dear love, when you read this, be merciful to me! I was so
young, and I longed so for some of the brightness of life. I never loved
him; and, as you will see, I repented--ah, me, so sorely!--before half
the journey was accomplished. I have never loved any one but you--and
that I have lost you is more bitter than death.
"Many people have died from less suffering than that which I am
undergoing now. Oh, Adrian, I do not think I deserved this terrible
punishment! I did not mean to do anything wrong. I do not ask you to
forgive me! I know you never can. You will fling off all thought of me
as of one unworthy. I told you I was unworthy, but I--oh, Adrian--I
shall love you till I die! All my thoughts will be of you; and I pray
to Heaven that I may die when I have achieved what I am going to do.
Living, you must loathe me; dead, you will pity me.
"Adrian, I have written your name here. I have wept hot, bitter tears
over it; I have kissed it; and now I must part from you, my heart's own
love! Farewell for ever and ever!
"HYACINTH."
"What does it all mean?" he cried, great drops of anguish gathering on
his brow. "Where is the child? What has she done?"
"I do not know," said Lady Vaughan--"I cannot understand it, Adrian. She
has done nothing. What can she have done? All her life has been passed
with me."
"I shall see in the newspapers what she has done, she says. What can she
mean?"
A sudden light seemed to break in upon him: he turned to Lady Vaughan.
"Rely upon it," he said, "it is some fancy of hers about that murder. I
shall not lose a moment. I shall go in search of her."