A MOONLIGHT FLITTING.
The big Dutch clock on the kitchen mantel struck nine. The silence of
the grave reigned within the house. With the first clear chime Mrs.
Susan Sharpe rose from the bed on which she had thrown herself, dressed
and prepared for action.
She drew the curtain and looked out. The night was celestial. A
brilliant, full moon flooded the dark earth and purple sea with silvery
radiance; the sky was cloudless--blue as Mollie Dane's eyes, the stars
beyond number, big and bright.
A faint sea-breeze just stirred the swaying trees; the surf broke in a
dull, monotonous wash on the shining strand; even the dreary Long Island
farmhouse and its desolate surroundings were transfigured and glorified
by the radiant moonlight.
Mrs. Susan Sharpe was an inestimable woman in her way, but neither a
poet nor an artist. She gave a complacent glance at earth, and sky, and
water, thankful that the benign influences, in the way of weather, were
at work to aid them.
"It's a very nice night," murmured Mrs. Susan Sharpe. "Couldn't be
better if they tried ever so much. It would have been dreadful awkward
if it rained. How still the house is--like a tomb! Dear me, I hope there
was no harm done by that drug! I must go and get ready at once."
But just at that moment she heard a sharp, shrill, prolonged whistle.
She paused. An instant more and a man vaulted lightly over the high
board fence.
"Lor'!" said Mrs. Sharpe, "if it isn't him already! I hope the dogs are
done for."
It seemed as if they were, for, as she looked and listened, in
considerable trepidation, the man approached the house in swift,
swinging strides. Of course, it was the peddler. Mrs. Sharpe threw up
her window and projected her head.
"Mr. Ingelow!"
"Halloo!"
The man halted and looked up.
"Where are the dogs?"
"In the dogish elysium, I hope. Dead and done for, Sarah. Come down,
like a good girl, and let me in."
"I'm not sure that they're fast asleep."
"Oh, they are," said Hugh Ingelow, confidently, "if you administered the
drug and they drank the tea."
"I did," said Mrs. Sharpe, "and they drank the tea and went to bed awful
sleepy. If you think it's safe, I'll go down."
"All right. Come along."
Mrs. Sharpe lowered the sash and hurried down stairs. Bolts clattered,
the lock creaked, but the sleepers in the house made no sign. A second
or two and the nocturnal marauders were together in the hall.
"I told you it was safe," said Mr. Ingelow. "You are a woman in a
thousand, Sarah, to manage so cleverly! Now, then, for Miss Dane!
Upstairs, is it? Do you go in first, Sarah; but don't tell her I'm
coming. I want the pleasure of surprising her myself."
Sarah smiled, and unlocked Mollie's door. The girl was sitting with an
anxious, listening, expectant face. She rose up and turned around at the
opening of the door.
"Is it you, nurse? Oh, I have been so uneasy! What noise was--"
She never finished the sentence--it died out in an inarticulate cry of
joy. For Hugh Ingelow, his disguise torn off, stood in the door-way,
smiling and serene as the god of safety himself.
Mollie Dane was a creature of impulse--she never stopped to think. One
faint; suppressed cry, one bound forward, and she was in the young man's
arms.
"Hugh! Hugh! Hugh!" she cried, hysterically, clinging to him, "save me!
save me!"
It was the first time she had ever called him other than Mr. Ingelow.
The young man's arms closed around her as if they never would open
again.
"My darling, I have come to save you!"
It had all passed in five seconds, but that short interval was long
enough for Mollie's womanly instincts to take the alarm. She disengaged
herself, reddening violently. What would he think of her? and Mrs.
Sharpe there, too!
"They have driven me nearly out of my senses!" she said, with a sort of
choking sob. "I don't know what I am doing half the time, and I was so
glad to see a friend's familiar face, Mr. Ingelow."
The blue eyes--the eyes of a very child--lifted themselves wistfully,
deprecatingly, shining in tears. Hugh Ingelow was touched to the core of
his heart.
"I know it, my poor little girl! It is enough to drive any one out of
his senses. But let us see if we can't outwit the crafty Oleander. Put
your bonnet on and come."
Mollie paused suddenly, and looked first at him, then at Mrs. Susan
Sharpe, then back again.
"Well, Miss Dane," said Mr. Ingelow, "you're not afraid to come with
me?"
"Afraid?" the blue eyes turned upon him with an eloquent glance. "Oh,
no! But she--Mrs. Sharpe--"
"Is coming, too, of course, to play propriety," laughed Hugh. "Mrs.
Sharpe," turning to that demure lady, "put on your fixings and let us
fly!"
Mrs. Sharpe nodded, and turned to go into her own room.
"There's Miss Dane's things," she said, pointing to the pegs on which
they hung. "I'll be back in two minutes."
Mr. Ingelow took them down, and tenderly wrapped the long mantle about
the slender, girlish figure.
"Are you sure you will be warm enough, Mollie?--I beg your pardon--Miss
Dane."
"Ah, call me Mollie!" the eloquent glance once more. "How good you are
to me, Mr. Ingelow!"
Hugh Ingelow winced as if she had stabbed him.
"I'm a wretch--a brute--a heartless monster! That's what I am, Mollie,
and you'll think so, too, some day--that's the worst of it. Don't wear
that puzzled, frightened face, my darling! Heaven knows I would die for
you!"
She took his hand and kissed it. Before either had time to speak, of
course Mrs. Sharpe must happen in and spoil all.
But Hugh Ingelow, strange to say, looked rather relieved. His face had
flushed hotly under that innocent kiss, and then grown deathly pale. He
was very white when Mrs. Sharpe came in, and Mrs. Sharpe's sharp eyes
saw it. The green glasses were gone.
"You look fit to die," observed Mrs. Susan Sharpe, eying him. "What's
the matter?"
Mollie looked at him, then turned away. Had she been forward? Was he
mortified?
She colored painfully, then slowly petrified to marble. But the young
artist only laughed.
"Pining for you, Mrs. Sharpe. I only exist in the light of your eyes. By
the way, where's the green spectacles?"
"In my pocket. Come!"
Mollie had knotted her bonnet strings with nervous, trembling fingers.
She was thrilling through with mortification. She had been bold, and she
had disgusted his fastidious taste, and she had not meant it. She was so
grateful, and she loved him so dearly, but she never would offend in
that way again.
Mr. Ingelow offered her his arm, but she drew back.
"I will follow you," she said, in a low voice, shrinking painfully into
herself.
He said no more, but led the way. Mrs. Sharpe went after, Miss Dane
last. No sound broke the stillness of the house. They might have been in
their beds for all the noise they made.
"I hope it's all right," Mrs. Sharpe said, with a very uneasy face;
"but I feel scared."
"You needn't, then," answered Mr. Ingelow; "they're safe enough. They'll
be all alive in two or three hours from now, and will never know what
ailed them. Save your sympathy, Susan, for time of need."
They went down-stairs, out-of-doors, into the cool, bright moonlight.
Mollie Dane drew a long, long breath of unspeakable thankfulness as she
breathed the fresh, free air once more.
"Thank Heaven," she thought, "and--Hugh Ingelow!"
They reached the garden gate; it stood wide; they passed out, and the
artist closed it securely after him.
"'Safe bind, safe find!' Now, Miss Dane, take my arm, and let us see you
step out. I have a trap waiting down the road. Neat thing this in the
way of moonlight, isn't it?"
Mollie essayed to laugh. He had not waited for her to decline his
proffered arm this time--he had taken her hand and drawn it securely
through.
"How does freedom feel, Mollie, after a week or two of close
imprisonment?"
"Very delightful. You must suffer the imprisonment first, Mr. Ingelow,
before you can realize it."
"I would prefer trying to realize it without. Ah, my worthy Doctor
Oleander, I think I have outwitted you nicely!"
"I have been so bewildered, and so flurried, and so stunned from the
first," said Mollie, "that I can not properly comprehend anything, but
I should like to hear how you have brought all this about."
"Why," said Mr. Ingelow, "Mrs. Sharpe told me."
"Yes; but you sent Mrs. Sharpe here in the first place; she told me
that. How did you know I was here?"
"Ah! thereby hangs a tale--too long to tell at this sharp pace. Wait
until to-morrow, Miss Mollie. There's our vehicle yonder. I might tell
you by the way, but the road is long, and the night is chill, and I am
to be charioteer. I couldn't do proper justice to the subject, you
perceive; and besides, I want you to cuddle up and go to sleep. Here we
are. Pile in, Mrs. Sharpe; the back seat, if you please. Miss Dane and I
will sit in front and shield you from the inclemency of the weather."
"Much obliged to you, sir," Mrs. Sharpe said, dryly, obeying orders,
nevertheless.
"I'll sit back with Mrs. Sharpe," said Mollie, sensitively shrinking.
"You'll do nothing of the sort!" retorted Mr. Ingelow, authoritatively.
"You'll do precisely as I tell you! You and Mrs. Sharpe are both in my
power, and if you don't keep uncommonly civil and docile, I'll run off
with the pair of you and start a seraglio! There, ma'am, you're
comfortable, I hope? Now, the sooner you go to sleep the better."
He helped Mrs. Sharpe into the back seat of the two-seated buggy,
wrapped her up, and then assisted Mollie up in front.
"A splendid night for our business," he said, getting in beside her and
gathering up the reins. "Now then, off we go, over 'brake, bush and
scaur,' and good-bye to Doctor Oleander and the trip to Cuba!"
Obedience was not very hard in this instance. Miss Dane snugged up nice
and close to Mr. Ingelow, and felt very comfortable indeed. As for him,
there was a glow of happiness about his heart like the halo round a full
moon. They would have been satisfied, just then, to sit side by side and
drive along in a glory of moonshine forever and ever.
"Where are we going?" Mollie asked once.
"To the city--to New York."
"Oh! I know. But where?"
"Wherever you please, Miss Mollie. That will be Mr. Walraven's, I
presume?"
"But--"
Mollie hesitated.
"What?" he said, in surprise. "Don't you want to go home?"
"Very much, Mr. Ingelow. It isn't that."
"Well, what is it, then?"
"Mr. Ingelow, you'll think me very silly, I dare say; but I don't want
to go up there in a matter-of-fact sort of way at day-break to-morrow
morning, in this double buggy, with you and Mrs. Sharpe. I should
like--how shall I say it?--a little _coup de théâtre_!"
"Oh! I understand," Mr. Ingelow laughed. "It is quite natural. I should
like it myself. And, by Jove! I've got a capital idea."
Mollie looked up brightly.
"Oleander has given out that he is going to Cuba--he makes no secret of
one half the story, you see--and Mr. Walraven gives a farewell dinner in
honor of the mournful occasion, on Thursday--to-morrow evening. The
party is select--very--on your account, you know--only Sir Roger
Trajenna, Walraven's lawyer, Sardonyx, and myself. Now, when we're all
assembled, discussing your absence, as I'll take care we shall be, and
Oleander is telling lies by the yard, do you appear like a thunder-clap
and transfix him. Guilt will be confounded, innocence triumphantly
vindicated, the virtuous made happy, and the curtain will go down amid
tremendous applause. Eh, how do you like the style of that?"
Mollie laughed gleefully. Half-tamed thing that she was, a few moments
of breezy freedom, by the side of the man she loved, made her all her
old, happy, mischief-loving self again. In the first bright sparkle and
intoxication, she could quite forget that awful fact that she was Dr.
Oleander's wedded wife.
"Splendid! Oh! what fun it will be to see him! And such glorious
revenge, too!"
"Seriously, Mollie," said Mr. Ingelow, "he deserves to be punished for
his unmanly trick."
"And he shall be!" Mollie cried, her eyes sparkling. "He shall be, if all
the world knows the story! What care I? I will have my revenge on the
man I hate--on the man who has wronged me beyond reparation. And then I
can go away where no one will know me, and make my own way through the
world, as I did before I ever came to New York."
Hugh Ingelow looked at her. Her eyes were alight, her cheeks flushed,
her whole face eager, angry, and aglow.
"Wronged you beyond reparation!" he slowly repeated. "Mollie, what do
you mean?"
"I mean," Mollie passionately cried, "that I am his wife. And I will
never forgive him for making me that--never, never, if it were my dying
day!"
"His wife!"
The young man looked at her thunder-struck.
"Oh! you don't know. You hadn't heard, of course. It wasn't this time. I
would have murdered him and myself this time before he would ever lay a
finger on me. It was before. You remember that other time I was carried
off?"
"Oh!"
It was all Mr. Ingelow said; but, singular to relate, he looked
unutterably relieved.
"He married me then--forced me to marry him--and I--Oh, miserable girl
that I am! why did I not die a thousand deaths sooner than consent? But
I was mad, and it's too late now. Mr. Rashleigh married us. You
recollect that story he told at Mrs. Grand's dinner-party? Well, I was
the masked heroine of that adventure; but I never, never, never thought
Guy Oleander was the hero. I'd have died, even then, sooner than become
his wife. I hoped it was--I thought it was--"
She paused abruptly.
"Who?" pointedly asked Hugh Ingelow.
Mollie stole a side-long glance from under her sweeping lashes at the
handsome face.
"Some one who loved me as well, and whom I--well, didn't exactly hate;
and I do hate Doctor Oleander!"
"Which is extremely natural; at the same time wicked, I suppose. Now,
Mollie, don't try to keep awake and talk, because the journey is long
and dreary. Follow Mrs. Sharpe's example and go to sleep."
He wrapped her up closer; and Mollie, with a delicious sense of safety,
and comfort, and sleepiness, cuddled close in her wraps and felt
luxuriously happy.
She had slept very little of late. Tears had been her nightly portion,
instead of slumber. Now she was happy and at rest; and the very rush of
the swift wind, as they bowled along, made her drowsy. She leaned her
head against his arm and fell fast asleep.