“TAKE it, keep it, and let the poor sinner go!” Through long days and
sleepless nights the words echoed and re-echoed in Lord Hardcastle’s
ears. That they were spoken by an actual human voice he was positively
certain, but all enquiries respecting the grey veiled figure proved
fruitless, and from that time he saw her no more.
Very carefully and gently he broke the news of the restoration of Amy’s
ring to Mr. Warden, feeling the necessity that every circumstance
connected with their search should be known to him as it occurred, for
who could tell what might happen next?
Mr. Warden listened very calmly to the strange story—
“It is the beginning of the end,” he said. “Heaven only knows what the
end will be! Stranger things than this are, no doubt, in store for us.
Keep the ring, Hardcastle, who can have a greater right than you to
wear it?”
And Hardcastle kept the ring, and registered yet another vow in his own
heart in much the same words he had vowed hand-in-hand with Frank
Varley, that “by night and by day, by land and by sea, he would search
the whole world through” to clear the name of the girl he loved.
Mr. Warden daily grew weaker and weaker. They rested a week at
Boulogne, and then travelled by easy stages to Le Puy. After eight
days’ quiet travelling they reached the picturesque old city, and
though tired and worn out to the last degree, Mr. Warden insisted on
being at once driven to a small quiet inn (it could scarcely be called
hotel) situated half way between the town and his old mountain home.
“_A l’Aigle des Montagnes_” was the sign which hung over this quiet
little hostelry, and its dedication could not possibly have been better
chosen. Perched high in the second belt of rocks which surrounds Le
Puy, it seemed incredible, when looked at from the plateau beneath,
that aught but eagle’s wings could mount so far. A narrow, winding
path, made to admit the “little cars” of the country, with not an
inch to spare on either side, led to the inn. To an inexperienced
traveller the road seemed terrible and dangerous, but the hardy,
sure-footed mountaineer made but light of it. What to him was a
precipice, first on this side, then on that, and occasionally on both?
Once arrived at the summit the view was simply magnificent, bounded
only by the distant Cevennes, and showing, in all its sparkling beauty,
the windings of the Loire and its many tributaries.
Hither some twenty years previously Mr. Warden had first come, and with
an artist’s appreciation of the grand and the beautiful, had returned
again and again to paint the wild mountain scenery and ruined chateaux
which were hung here and there like eagle’s nests among the rocks.
Since those old days the place had twice changed hands, and the present
proprietor was totally unknown to him. Nevertheless the place and its
surroundings could not fail to revive many bitter memories and days
both sad and sweet to him, and on the second day after their arrival,
Lord Hardcastle saw in him such a rapid change for the worse, that he
at once gave orders that a doctor should be sent for from Le Puy.
“It is useless, Hardcastle,” said Mr. Warden, when he heard the order
given. “No doctor can do anything for me now. Let them get me a few
tonics, which I can prescribe for myself, so that I may rally for a few
days, and pay a visit to my old home here. Open the window,” he added
impetuously, “this soft, sweet air brings life back to me.”
Then Hardcastle placed for him a low easy chair close to the casement,
whence he could look right and left upon the mountain panorama, and
even catch a glimpse of a turret of his old chateau standing high among
the distant rocks.
Mr. Warden gazed long and earnestly upon the magnificent landscape,
drinking in every sight and sound, as a dying man might gaze upon some
loved scene whose memory he wished to carry with him into eternity.
Lord Hardcastle dared not disturb him, he leaned over the back of his
chair without a word, and endeavoured, as far as possible, to follow
the train of his thoughts.
Suddenly Mr. Warden turned his head and looked Hardcastle full in the
face. He spoke excitedly, and his voice appeared almost to have
regained its old strength and firmness.
“Hardcastle,” he said “you have done a great deal for me, I know you
will do one thing more. It may be the last favour I shall ask of you.
Come here, stand at my right. You see, just between those sugarloaf
crags, the west turrets of my old home—the Chateau D’Albiac it was
called in those days. It stands on the highest ground in Cassagnac. A
little to the right there is a low well-cultivated valley, with about
five or six peasants’ houses dotted here and there. In one of these
Isola’s people lived, and there my darling Aimée was reared as her
foster-child. Will you go there for me, and if you can find her, bring
her here to me. I have one or two questions to ask, which she only can
answer.”
“Gladly,” replied Hardcastle. “It has been my intention from the first
to seek this woman out and question her. As soon as the doctor arrives,
I will leave you in his charge, and set off without further delay.”
“No,” said Mr. Warden decisively, “you must set off at once; you do not
know these mountain paths as I do, and to a stranger they are full of
difficulties and dangers. Cassagnac is nearly six miles from here. You
laugh at the distance. Five miles of these mountain paths is no light
thing, I can assure you. If you start at once on one of the little
mountain ponies, you will not arrive at Cassagnac till nearly sunset.
Then you will have at least three miles further to go before you can
get a night’s lodging, for you cannot possibly by any means return here
until to-morrow.”
“Until to-morrow,” echoed Hardcastle sadly, and the thought flashed
through his brain “what if he be not here to-morrow?”
Mr. Warden read his thoughts, “It is not so near as that Hardcastle,”
he said quietly; “but it is not far away. Go at once, I implore you,
for days and hours are getting precious to me now. Your doctor will be
here before long; the people of the house are good and kind, and I feel
at home with them. Go at once, I beg of you; let me not feel I have had
my journey here for nothing. Ah! if my young strength would come back
to me for one day, how gladly would I set off with you!” Then he leaned
back in his easy chair wearied out, and once more begging Hardcastle to
start immediately, closed his eyes as though he wished to sleep.
Hardcastle had no choice but to obey. He went at once to the innkeeper
and his wife, and gave them strict orders to be constantly in and out
of Mr. Warden’s room during his absence, and one to remain with him
throughout the night. Then he wrote a few lines to the doctor,
requesting him to remain until his return on the morrow. Even with
these precautions his heart misgave him, and he could scarcely summon
courage to start on his journey.
However, he felt further contention with Mr. Warden would be worse than
useless—it would be positively injurious to him, so with another
farewell glance at his friend, apparently sleeping quietly in the
window seat, he set off on his little mountain pony.
Then it was that the Cevenol scenery burst upon him in all its wild
grandeur. It was not one magnificent picture which met his eye, but a
hundred or more, for every turn of the steep mountain path brought to
view some fresh tableau of startling beauty. But the one thing which
struck him most was the solitude, the intense silence which reigned
everywhere. The rush and roar of the falling torrent, the scream of a
distant wild bird, and once only the lowing of some oxen, evidently
yoked to one of the rude cars of the country, these were the only
sounds which broke the perfect stillness of the scene.
“Cassagnac,” he thought, “must be a very tiny village, for its highway
to be so little frequented.” It had slipped his memory, so full it was
of other thoughts, that none but the hardiest or poorest of the
villagers would remain to face the terrible winter of these parts, when
roads and valleys alike are choked with snow. In fact he was journeying
on to a deserted village, for, by the end of November at latest, most
of the peasants have taken refuge in more accessible localities.
Quietly and steadily the little pony kept on his way, never swerving an
inch right or left; the gritty lava crunched under his feet, and now
and then a huge boulder would fall from the path into the deep ravine
below, with an echoing crash. Hardcastle had provided himself with a
plan of the country,—a rudely sketched one, drawn out by the landlord
of the “_Aigle des Montagnes_,” for the use of his guests—but he
scarcely needed it, so well did the little pony know his road.
As the afternoon went on the Chateau D’Albiac stood out plainly in
front of him. But although apparently so near it was yet some little
distance off, for the pathway, ever mounting, took many curves and
bends, and Lord Hardcastle found he could not possibly arrive there
before twilight set in. The sun sank lower and lower, the shadows
lengthened and deepened, and although the air for the time of year was
remarkably balmy and mild, Hardcastle could not repress a shudder as he
took the last curve which brought him face to face with the old
chateau. Was it the silence and loneliness of the place which so
oppressed him, or was it that his nerves had been shaken by the strange
events through which he had lately passed? A feeling he could not
understand took possession of his mind. He felt almost like a man
walking in a dream, seeing strange sights and hearing strange sounds,
so unreal, so unlike anything he had ever seen was the mountain picture
around him. There, straight in front of him, stood the old chateau, the
highest point in the rocky landscape. Every door barred, every window
shut, not to be opened till the following spring. The sun sank lower
and lower, the shadows lengthened and deepened, the rocks began to take
fantastic shapes against the evening sky, lighted in the west by the
long golden and purple streaks of the dying day. Not a sound broke the
intense silence of the place, and Hardcastle, throwing the reins on his
pony’s neck, in perfect stillness drank in the beauty and glory of the
scene. The sun, with a farewell scarlet light, fired the windows of the
old chateau, danced upon peaks and crags of fantastic shape, and sent a
flood of glory upon two solitary female figures standing on one of the
highest points of the worn-out volcanoes.
“I must be dreaming! It is a land of visions here; I have lost control
over my own senses;” said Hardcastle, aloud, as he pressed forward to
get a nearer view of what seemed to him an illusion. Two figures at
such a time, in such a scene of loneliness and solitude! Nearer and
nearer he drew. What did he see? Breathless and nerveless he leaned
forward deprived alike of speech and power. Mountains, crags and
sunlight swam before his eyes and faded away into mist, while the words
of Mr. Warden, in the study of Harleyford, rang and echoed in his
ears. “I can see her now—see her as she stood the first day I saw her
in the lonely mountain country. Her feet on the black-red lava, the
glowing sunset behind her head, her rich dark beauty flashing back
every gold and crimson ray. The long white robe she wore, and the
dark-faced nurse by her side.” There, straight in front of him, was the
literal realization of the picture in all its details, for there,
awe-struck and silent as himself, stood Amy Warden and Isola the nurse!