As Hyacinth Vaughan left the Loadstone Assize Court she drew her veil
tightly over her face, and, looking neither to the right nor left, made
her way through the dense crowd of people. No one noticed her; they were
all too busily engaged in discussing the events of the trial. She had
not the least idea whither she was going, or what she was about to do;
all she remembered was that she had broken every tie that bound her to
her past life, that it was all dead to her, and that she had saved
Claude. How vividly, as she walked through the long street, there came
back to her a remembrance of one day when she had driven over with Sir
Arthur and Lady Vaughan to Loadstone. What a deep gulf lay between that
time and this! Then people had bowed to her as though she had been some
great lady, and honor and respect had been shown to her. Now, homeless,
friendless, she was a fugitive in that same town, and knew not where to
lay her head.
She walked until her limbs ached, and then she stopped suddenly, for the
first time asking herself where she was going--what she was to do. "For
I am dead," she said to herself, with a low moan, "to all who know
me--dead to my beautiful past. There is no Hyacinth Vaughan. And what is
to become of the wretched girl who once bore the name? I do not know."
She must go somewhere--she could not pace the long street and the silent
road all night; she must rest or she should fall, a helpless inert mass,
on the ground. Suddenly she came to the railway station; a porter was
shouting--"Train for London! Passengers for London, take your seats!"
She could not account for the impulse which led her to purchase a ticket
and take her place in a second-class carriage for London. She had no
idea what she should do when she reached her destination.
It was a rest to sit alone in the carriage--a luxury to close the tired
eyes, and say to herself that she had no more to do, for Claude was
saved; yet, when her eyes were closed, so many strange scenes flashed
before them, that she opened them with a terrified cry. It seemed to her
that she was too tired even to rest, and that the aching pains in her
limbs grew worse, her eyes burned, and her head throbbed with pain.
Yet through it all--through fatigue and pain--there was the great relief
that Claude was saved. Of Adrian she dared not think. She knew that this
"fiery sorrow" was waiting for her when she should regain strength and
calmness, when she could look it in the face; as it was, she shrunk,
sick and shuddering, from it. She put it from her. She would have none
of it. If she had then remembered all about Adrian Darcy, she would have
gone mad and nothing would have saved her.
The train sped on. When she dared not keep her eyes closed any longer,
she watched the fields and trees as the train whirled by. It was strange
how mingled were her thoughts; at one time she was at Queen's Chase,
sitting with Lady Vaughan in the silent rooms; at another she was with
Claude in the faint rosy morning dawn, and the murdered woman was lying
under the hedge; then she was with Adrian by the waterfall, and he was
telling her, that he should love her for evermore; then she stood beside
a green grave in a country churchyard, over which the foliage of a large
tree drooped--beneath was a stone with the inscription, "Hyacinth
Vaughan--aged eighteen."
From all these mingled dreams and visions she woke with a terrible
scream.
"If I cannot sleep," she thought to herself, "I shall go mad."
Then everything went black before her eyes, her head fell back, and she
knew no more until loud, strange voices shouted "Euston Square."
She was in the great Babylon at last. So young, so lovely, so simple in
her child-like innocence; alone, unprotected, unknown in the streets of
that great city: having neither home nor friends--having neither brain
nor mind clear--what was to save her? She left the carriage and sat for
some time on one of the seats on the platform; the same heaviness, the
same strange mixture of past and present confused her.
"I must sleep," she said to herself--"I must sleep or I shall go mad."
She rose and walked out of the station. What a labyrinth of streets,
squares, and houses! Where could she find rest? Suddenly across the
bewildered mind came one clear thought.
"I have money, and I must take lodgings--I can pay for them; and, in a
room of my own, I can sleep until my brain is clear."
She walked slowly down one street, and up another, but saw no
announcement of "Lodgings to Let." Then she fancied all the houses were
reeling, and the sky closing in upon her. The next moment they were
steady again, and she was standing, looking wildly around. Again she
walked on a little farther, and then became sick, faint and giddy.
"This is something more than the want of sleep," she said to herself. "I
am ill. I cannot walk--I cannot stand. Everything is reeling around
me."
Suddenly her eyes fell on a brass plate on the door of a house quite
near--"Dr. Chalmers."
"I will consult him," she thought. "Perhaps he can prescribe something
that will take this dreadful feeling away."
She went up the little flight of steps and knocked. Then it seemed as
though the door were falling on her, and she seized one of the iron
railings to save herself from falling. A neat maid-servant opened the
door.
"Is Dr. Chalmers at home?" asked Hyacinth; and the sound of her voice
struck her as being so strange that she hardly knew it.
"Yes, miss," was the smiling reply.
"I wish to see him," said Hyacinth.
"What name shall I give?" asked the maid.
"None--I am quite a stranger."
She was shown into the surgery, and sat down on a large low lounge. A
strange drowsy calm came over her. She pulled off her hat and veil, and
laid back her tired head on the cushion.
Some few minutes elapsed before Dr. Chalmers entered the surgery; and
when he did so, he started back in wonder that was half alarm. There on
the lounge sat a girl, quite young, and lovely as a vision. The whole
face, so white and rigid, was peacefully beautiful--he had never seen
anything like it before. A profusion of golden hair had fallen over the
cushions, and two little white hands were clasped convulsively together.
Dr. Chalmers went a few steps nearer, and then his professional instinct
told him that this was no sleep. The girl seemed perfectly unconscious.
He spoke to her, and she seemed to arouse partially, and sat up, gazing
before her in a dazed, vacant way. Her little hands fell helplessly upon
her lap, and she seemed wholly unconscious of the presence of another in
the room. The good doctor looked at her in anxious alarm. He spoke to
her once, twice, thrice. She did not hear him. The doctor was wondering
what he should do, when she started up with a loud cry.
"He is innocent--he is quite innocent. Oh, shall I be in time to save
him?"
She sprung toward the door, but never reached it, for, with a low
moaning cry, she fell senseless on the floor. He raised her and laid her
on the couch, and then opened the door hastily and went to the foot of
the stairs.
"Mother," he called, "will you come down? I want you at once!"
A kindly-looking lady with a pleasant, comely face entered the room.
"Look here," said Dr. Robert Chalmers, pointing to the white figure.
"What are we to do, mother?"
Mrs. Chalmers went up to Hyacinth; with a soft womanly touch she put
back the rich, clustering hair, with keen womanly eyes she noted the
loveliness of the white face.
"Has she fainted? Who is she?" she asked of her son.
"I do not know--I had no time to speak to her. She is some lady who has
called for medical advice, no doubt. It seems to me more like a case of
incipient brain fever than of mere fainting; by the strange way in which
she cried out I should imagine her to be quite delirious."
Then they both stood for some minutes gazing in silence on that
exquisite face.
"She does not look more than eighteen," said the doctor--"she is very
young. What shall we do with her, mother?"
The lady laid her hand on her son's arm.
"We must do as the good Samaritan did when he found his fellow-man
wounded and helpless by the wayside," was the gentle reply.