CHAPTER LXVII.
Lord Stuart went back to the cabin that night to share Norman’s vigil, and when he stood by the bedside of Mrs. de Vere, and saw what an awful change had come over the once handsome, noble-looking woman, his heart sunk with dread. The gray shadow of death seemed already settling upon her terribly wasted features. He did not believe that she could possibly live through the impending crisis.
“She will die to-night, and another crime will lie at the door of that beautiful fiend,” he thought, with burning indignation against heartless Camille.
They had been sitting quietly for more than an hour, watching the invalid, who lay in a stupor almost as deep as death, when Lord Stuart’s ear caught the sound of a light tapping at the kitchen door. He rose softly and went out, anxious that Norman should not be disturbed, and found a messenger boy with a telegram for Norman de Vere.
Lord Stuart took the telegram and turned into the quiet kitchen. A thought had come to him of the fraudulent one that had summoned Norman de Vere to New York in order that his relentless foe might desolate his home.
“Perhaps this is some more of her cruel work. She would drag the son by a deep-laid scheme from the bedside of his dying mother,” he thought, angrily. “But I will foil herplan. For my friend’s sake, I will read the telegram and decide whether he shall see it to-night or not.”
He tore off the yellow envelope and read the telegram, which was dated from a distant Western town. His eyes dilated at these startling words:
“I have found your wife and child here by a strange chance. Thea is dangerously ill and unable to explain. For God’s sake, what does it mean? Come instantly.“Frank Hinton.”
“I have found your wife and child here by a strange chance. Thea is dangerously ill and unable to explain. For God’s sake, what does it mean? Come instantly.
“Frank Hinton.”
“Great Heaven! is there any truth in this, or is it a device of Camille to lure Norman away?” Lord Stuart muttered, in an agony of indecision as he thrust the telegram in his vest-pocket, and stood thinking, wondering whether he ought to tell Norman or not. “He would be wild to go, but he could not forsake his dying mother, and his mind must not be tortured by this miserable uncertainty. It is I who must go upon this wild-goose chase, as the Americans say of an uncertainty. Then if it turns out another scheme of Camille, she will have been baffled in her malice,” he decided; and, going back into the sick-room where Norman sat with heavy, miserable eyes fixed on his mother’s pallid, wasted features, he touched him on the arm.
“Can you forgive me for deserting you in this terrible hour? I have been suddenly summoned away on a matter of the most urgent importance to me,” he whispered, with an agitated face.
“Go, my friend,” Norman answered, huskily; “I shall not be alone. The nurse will be here, and Doctor Hall has promised to return before midnight.”
Then Lord Stuart spent a few solemn minutes by Mrs. de Vere’s bedside, taking, as he believed, a silent last farewell of a noble woman soon to be removed from earth, and whispering a few hopeful words to his stricken friend, he hurried away, hoping that he would be able to catch a midnight train for the West.
He went back to his hotel and explained to his sister what had happened, and he was not much surprised when she begged that he would take her with him on the quest for Thea.
“But, Edith, it may prove a fruitless journey—it may be one of that false woman’s schemes,” he said.
“I will go with you on the bare chance that it is true, for if Thea is sick she will need my care,” she replied.
“It is noble of you, Edith, to cling to that poor girl still,even when the most blighting disgrace and misery have fallen to her lot,” her brother said, watching her keenly.
“I love her all the more dearly for her unmerited misfortunes,” Lady Edith cried, impetuously. “Oh, brother, do you not think we might take her back to England with us until Norman is free to marry her again? We might comfort the poor, unhappy child.”
“We will see,” said Lord Stuart, kindly. “But if you mean to go with me, hurry and get ready, my dear. You need only take one trunk and your maid.”