Helen Goulburnwas sitting alone in the great drawing-room of her father’s country-house on an evening in October. It had been very sultry during the day, and the great heat had ended in a thunderstorm and torrents of rain. Now all the tumult and commotion of the elements were over. The night was cool and fresh. The great windows were open to the unseen garden, from which a sweetness of honeysuckle and mignonnette and late roses came in upon every breath of the fitful night air. The room was an immense room, far too large for a solitary occupant. She and her lamp and her white dress made a lightness in one corner; the rest of the huge drawing-room was faintly lighted with candles, of which there were regiments about on the walls, reflected vaguely from mirrors here and there, on tables and consoles and cabinets,—but yet not enough to give anything like light to the vast shadowy room, which was full of everything that is rich and rare—of everything at least that the highest price could buy or the best workmen produce. The windows, a long line of them, all draped in that shadowy whiteness, stood open, as has been said. Most girls of Helen’s age would have been afraid to sit all alone, with so many windows opening on to a lawn, which inits turn swept downwards into the park, at so late an hour. Sometimes the lace curtains swayed in the night wind as if put aside by a shadowy hand. It was difficult to keep the imagination from developing some stealthy figure half hidden in the drapery, some one coming in, out of the darkness outside. The house was full of wealth, and the temptations to a sudden raid might have been many. When the branches swayed in the night air, bringing down a shower of raindrops, or some twig cracked, or one of the mysterious noises of which darkness is always full, broke the absolute quiet—any one of those sounds, which yet were scarcely definite sounds at all, might have conveyed a tremor to the lonely occupant of all this mystic space and solitude. But Helen sat unmoved. She was used to the vacant bigness of the great house, often inhabited by only herself and her little sister, and a crowd of servants. She had been in the hands of a governess till very lately, and in the routine of lessons and the certainty that a schoolgirl was not likely to be interrupted by visitors, had escaped all consciousness of the isolation of the great house. It was the most splendid in the county, surrounded by a beautiful park, embosomed in great trees. When Mr Goulburn bought it from the decaying proud family to whom its glories belonged, Fareham was already a noble place; and he had added greatly to it, had built out a room here and a room there, and enlarged it with every extravagance of convenience that lavish wealth could think of. He had built and decorated in the most costly way the splendid room in which his daughter was sitting; he had fitted out for her asuite of rooms worthy of a princess; the very servants were lodged as half the well-to-do people in England would have been glad to be lodged. Outside, in the darkness of the summer night, full of dew and rain and soft fragrance, were acres of flower-beds and conservatories, tended by a regiment of gardeners.
But notwithstanding all this splendour, the county looked very shyly on the new member of its sacred and select society. He had brought very good introductions, and he gave such dinners as were not to be had within a hundred miles. The Duke called, an honour scarcely less than royal condescension; but the surrounding gentry showed no enthusiasm in following that example. Helen was then still in the school-room, which furnished the ladies with a very good excuse; but even after the ball, which was given on the occasion of her coming out, andwhich certified that event to all the world, no genial circle of neighbours collected round her. Even her youth, her solitude, her motherless and friendless condition, did not call forth the sympathy of the county people. Never was girl more solitary. Her governess, who it had been arranged was to stay with her as chaperon, had married suddenly the widowed vicar of the parish, and deserted her not long before the period of which we speak: and she was left alone, the mistress of the wealthiest, most barren, and splendid house in all the district. She had crowds of servants to do whatever she bade—carriages, horses, whatever, as the servants’ hall said, heart could desire—but no friends. Little Jane, her little sister, was the offspring of a marriage which her father had made “abroad,” and of which, except this child, no trace existed. Itwas only on his return with the baby, six years before, that his extraordinary wealth had shown itself. Before that period Helen had been left at a school in the country—but not in this part of the country—where she had been happy enough with her companions. But when her father returned from “abroad,” everything had been changed for her. Anayahhad brought the baby home, and Helen had first become aware of the existence of a little sister when she saw a big pair of dark eyes gleaming out of the palest of little faces over the dusky nurse’s shoulder. She had been taken away from her school from that day, and ever since had lived the life of a princess, waited upon by innumerable servants, and living in luxurious houses. But her father had always lived the life of a bachelor, notwithstanding his possession of these two daughters. His friends had beenall men. There were great dinners now and then; and occasionally Helen had seen through an open door a glimpse of a long splendid table laden with plate and crystal, and baskets of fruit and flowers, where her father’s friends were being entertained. But no ladies had come to the house, nor, after the childish companions of her school, had she had any friends in her new magnificence, except Miss Temple, who had been very good to her, and whose departure had brought a poignant sensation of loss into the girl’s mind. It was almost the only keen feeling she had ever known. She had come into society with something of the bewildered, uncertain vision of a creature bred in the darkness, who is dazzled and confused rather than delighted by the light. The people who came to the ball had been as figures in a dream to her. The whole scene waslike something in the theatre. She was scarcely aware that she was herself not a spectator, but an actor in it, walking about mechanically among the guests, making her mechanical curtsey when her father brought up now one strange face, now another.
And after that one ball, silence had fallen again upon Fareham. The porter at the lodge received sheaves of cards, and some carriages even penetrated through the grand avenue to the hall door; but no one entered the house. Doubtless there were some hearts in those carriages in which there vibrated some touch of pity for the millionaire’s shy, motherless, inexperienced daughter. But the county was wonderfully intact, and its gentry had made up their minds to discourage the advent of Money among them. A few years of perseverance would no doubt have made an end of that irrational notion; but in the meantime they distrusted Mr Goulburn. He was far too rich; it was insolent of a man who, so far as any one knew, was nobody, to be richer than all the squires put together. A ball in such a house might be tolerated. It was like a public ball; you took your own party (for in this respect the invitations were most liberal), and, save that one of your men had to sacrifice himself to ask the girl of the house to dance once, you kept yourselves to yourselves, as you did at the ball for the hospital or any other subscription assembly. This was what the county people said. And as for Helen, she was often dull, but she had not learned to blame anybody for her dulness. She thought it a law of nature—it was no one’s fault.
All this explanation is to show how it was that Helen found nothing unusualin her own position, alone in this great dim room, with all the windows open. The windows always were open, except in the depth of winter. The darkness without had no dangers for her; it never occurred to her that any strange apparition might disturb her solitude. She liked the stillness, the night air, the fragrance from the garden. Though she usually went to bed early, yet on this night she was not sleepy. She was reading a novel; that was one of the luxuries which her father provided regularly. She had not read many books that were worth reading, but of novels all kinds. When the butler came softly into the room, with the intention of closing up the house for the night, she stopped him.
“Are you going to sit up to-night, Brownlow?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Goulburn, as usual onSaturdays, till the last train comes in,” the man replied.
“Then leave the windows open a little longer.”
“Yes, Miss Goulburn,” he said. But he did not go away forthwith; he extinguished the candles on the distant tables and in the sconces, moving like a shadow (though he was very substantial) in that elegant desert of costly furniture, until finally Helen’s figure in her white dress, lit up by her lamp, became the one definite point in the darkness. She was at some distance from the windows, in the winter corner near the fireplace, now all dark. Everything was dark except that one spot. The soft and almost stealthy closing of the door was all that testified to Brownlow’s departure; he had become invisible before. In the great stillness his soft and regular step, subdued and respectful, as a good servant’s ought to be, yet stately, was heard retiring, thick though the carpets were and closely fitting every door. He went away through those softly carpeted corridors and across the great marble hall to his own part of the house. And once more absolute silence and solitude abode with Helen. The night air came in softly, swaying the curtains; sometimes a bough creaked, a long tendril of some creeping plant shook out a few rain-drops, a moth dashed against the panes. No other sound in heaven or earth. And Helen in her white dress gave a heart to the darkness. All alone, no one near her, yet not afraid!
Whatwas it that stirred?
Scarcely a sound at all—not half so definite as the cracking of the twigs, the boom of the night moth against the window; yet it affected Helen as those sounds never did. When it had occurred twice she raised her head. It was nothing, and yet—— Again! What was it? Though you would not call it a sound, it made the air thrill as no sound of the inanimate ever does. She looked up, but the light of her own lamp blinded her. She could scarcely see beyond its charmed circle. Then a slight jar succeeded to the soft pressure, as of a humanfoot upon the turf. A sound that conveys purpose and energy, how different is it from the aimless noises of nature! She rose up in great, though restrained alarm, with a cry almost on her lips. Then Helen reflected that all the servants were far away, that a scream would not help her much; and though her heart beat wildly, almost taking from her both sight and hearing, she still could, after a sort, both hear and see. She stood up, closely drawn against the wall, looking out with puckered eyelids. Then a hand stole between the curtains of the nearest window: they were pushed aside, and a dark figure showed itself, at first indistinguishable, a something merely, an emblem of mystery and danger. Helen’s scream got vent, but in a low cry only of fright and dismay. Then all at once the fluttering of her heart stopped, her pulses regained their steadiness.
“Papa!” she said, “oh, how you have frightened me! Why didn’t you come in the other way?” It was a great relief, for her terror had been all the greater that she had never experienced any visionary alarms before, and her imagination was unprepared. She put out her hand to the bell, “I will ring for Brownlow——”
Her father did not leave her time even for another word. He sprang forward and caught her arm. “Don’t do anything of the kind,” he said. “I want no Brownlow. I am going again immediately. I want no one. I don’t wish it to be known that I have been here.”
It was certainly her father, but not the placid, prosperous, moneyed man she knew. His coat, which was of a rough kind she had never seen him wear before, was beaded with rain. His face was paleand haggard; his dress bore traces of mud, as if he had scrambled over ditches; his boots were wet and clogged with the damp soil. She looked at him with a terror she could not express, and he looked at her with a somewhat stern inquiry in his eyes.
“But you are wet: you want—dinner—something?” she faltered. “Shall I run and bid them bring——”
He shook her slightly, still holding her arm. “Are you good for anything?” he said. “Have you any stuff in you? Now is the time to test it. Go and get that white rag off. Put on your darkest dress, and come with me.”
“Come with you? To-night, papa?”
He gave her a slight shake again. “It will neither be to-night or any other night if you make so much noise. What are you capable of, Helen? Are you able to be quick, and silent, and brave? CanI rely upon you?—if not, say so; but make up your mind, for there is not a moment to lose.”
She grew whiter than her white dress, and looked at him with gleaming, wide-open eyes. She had read of appeals like this, but she could not remember how the heroines responded. She said, faltering, “I can be quick, and quiet, papa.”
“That is all that is necessary; but we have not a moment’s time to lose. No one must know that I have been here. I shall go out again outside the window and wait for you. Go up to my room, to the little Italian cabinet near my bed, on the right hand. You know it, and you know how to open the secret drawer? Here is the key: bring me a little portfolio, a sort of letter-case you will find in it. Stop; that is not all. Change your dress and put on thick boots, anda cloak, and a veil. Then go and bring Janey——”
“Janey! papa? She has been in bed for hours.”
“Did I say she was not in bed? Take up the child out of her bed, wrap her in something, and bring her down-stairs. You can surely carry that little thing down-stairs. After that I’ll take charge of her myself.”
“But, papa, Janey! she is so little. If I wake her she will cry.”
“Not she! But why wake her at all? Lift her, and wrap her in something warm; she need not be awoke. My poor little Janey! I can’t go without my Janey,” he said to himself.
Helen scarcely knew what she was saying in her consternation and surprise. “If you are going anywhere, papa, and want to take Janey—at this hour—would it not be best to order the brougham?”
“Would it not be best to order a coach and six, with half-a-dozen fools to draw it?” he said savagely. Just then some far-off sounds were audible, some one moving in the silence of the house. Mr Goulburn made a hurried step towards the window. Then paused and said in a half-whisper, which he seemed to try to make kind, “Let me see what mettle you are made of, Helen. Do what I have told you without betraying yourself—without attracting any one’s attention. Show what you are good for, once in your life.”
He disappeared, and Helen stood for a moment like one in a dream. Was it a dream? and would she awake?—or had the rest of her life been a dream to which this was the awaking? She felt that her father was watching her from behind the white mist of the curtains, and that she dared not delay. She went up-stairs mechanically. The huge houselay silent like an enchanted palace. On Saturdays it was always possible that the master might not return until the late train, and it was common for the great household of servants, badly ruled and prodigal, to hold a sort of domestic saturnalia on that night. Faint sounds of fun and frolic were to be heard from the servants’ hall—very faint, for Brownlow had a sense of his responsibilities—and all the guardians of the place were out of the way. Helen went up, unseen and solitary, to her father’s room and her own. She did what he had told her—changed her own dress, and took the Russia leather letter-case, which was full apparently of papers, out of the secret drawer of the cabinet. But there she paused; the other part of the mission was more difficult; and Helen stood still again, with a beating heart, outside the door of little Janey’s nursery, where the nursecertainly ought to be, even if all the other servants were off duty. What should she do if the nurse were there? Her mission was difficult enough without that. When Helen went in, however, to the luxurious rooms appropriated to her little sister, no nurse was visible. The child of the millionaire slept, unwatched, like the child of the poorest clerk. A faint night-light burnt in the inner room. There were acres of stairs and corridors between little Janey and the highly paid functionary who was supposed to be devoted to her body and soul. She might have died of fright before any one could have heard her cry. Helen stood, breathless, at the foot of the little bed in which Janey lay fast asleep. She thought she had never realised before what perfect rest was, or the beauty of the child who lay with her pretty round arms thrown aboveher head, rosy with sleep and warmth, her soft breathing making a little murmurous cadence in the stillness. How can I have the heart to wake her? Helen said to herself; a new sentiment, half tenderness, half fear, seemed to awaken in her heart. To wake the little one to this hurried incomprehensible night journey seemed terrible—yet somehow Helen felt a reluctant conviction that Janey would adapt herself to the adventure better than she herself should. The child’s sleep, however, was so profound, and there was something so contrary to all the prejudices of education in waking her up at that hour, that only the thought of her father’s severe and haggard countenance kept Helen to her errand. She had even turned away to go back to him—to say that she could not do it—when the greater evil of having to return again, and of, perhaps, meetingnurse next time, prevailed. She got a warm little pelisse, with many capes—a piquant little Parisian garment, which had tantalised all the mothers in the district—out of its drawer, and put the little shoes ready. Then she bent over her small sister and called her. “Janey, wake up, wake up; papa wants you. Wake up; we are to go with him if you are quiet and don’t cry.”
The child sat up in her bed, awake all at once, with big, dark eyes, opening like windows in her pale face. “I am not doing to cry,” she said, and stared at her sister through the gloom, which was faintly illuminated by the night-lamp. Janey was, as Helen had anticipated, much more at home in the emergency than she was. She woke up in a moment, as children do, not with a margin of bewilderment and confusion such as is common to us—but wideawake, with all her little intelligence fresh and on the alert.
“What is it? what is it, Helen?”
“I don’t know; but you are to go down to papa. You are to be quiet; you are not to cry. We are going with him.”
“Where? where?”
“I don’t know,” said Helen, ready to weep with the strange and wild confusion, the sense of misery and wretchedness which was involved to her in this overthrowal of all habits, this sudden secrecy and adventure in the dark. But little Janey clapped her hands. It was a delightful novelty to the child. She pulled on her stockings on her own small pink feet, her eyes dancing with pleasure and excitement. No need to carry her down asleep, as Helen with terror and doubt of her own powers had feared.
“You must be quiet; you must bequiet—not to let the servants know,” the elder sister whispered.
“I am doing to be quiet,” said the little girl, delighted with the mystery. She thrust her big doll into her bed, and covered it carefully, while Helen, not knowing what she did, picked up various fugitive articles, half-consciously, and put them into the pockets of the ulster which she had put on.
“Be dood, baby, and keep my little bed warm till I come back,” sang little Janey.
“Oh, hush, hush! you are to be quiet—you are to be quiet,” Helen said.
They crept down the great stairs like two ghosts, fantastic little shadows, so unlike anything that could have been expected on that grand staircase at that hour. But they met no one. The sounds from the servants’ hall were a little moreaudible as the evening went on. The master was absent, the master’s daughter too shy and timid, even had she heard them, to take any notice. The hours of licence were approaching when even Mr Brownlow relaxed the bonds of discipline. As these sounds reached them, little Janey clasped her sister’s hand tighter. But it was the sense of a mischievous escapade, not of a mysterious calamity, which was in her mind.
“What will Nursey say?” the child said with a low laugh.
Even the whisper frightened Helen. The lights flared in all those vacant passages, but gloom lurked in every corner; the great rooms were all dark and empty: not a living being, not a sound of habitation was in the magnificent costly place, except the squeak of the footman’s violin, the far-off laughter of the servants—so much for so little!Amid all the confusion and terror of the moment, Helen always recollected the vacant lighted staircase, the hall with its marble pillars, the vast darkness of the dining-room standing open—not a creature near, except those two helpless creatures equipped for flight; but on the other hand, the servants’ merry-making, and the squeak of the fiddle painfully scratching out a popular tune. They paused to listen for one moment, holding their breath. Then they went into the drawing-room, where Helen’s lamp was still burning close to the wall, making the darkness visible. Her book was still lying open on the table. She had left the heroine at a painful crisis, but it was not so terrible as this.
Helen closed the door behind her with great precautions, and Janey, a little frightened at the dark, clung to her closely.
“Where is papa? I don’t see papa,” cried the child.
“Oh, hush, hush!” said Helen, frightened by the sound of her voice.
He was standing behind the curtains waiting for them.
“How long you have been!” he said to her in a low, stern voice; but he opened his arms to the child. “My little Janey—my little darling!” he said, bending down on his knees to bring himself within her reach. Janey clasped her arms round his neck, and kissed him, with open-mouthed childish kisses.
“Where are you doing to take me, papa?” she said, her dark eyes dancing with excitement. He raised himself up, holding her closely clasped to his breast, and carried her out into the night.
What a strange night-walk it was—through the country lanes, all heavy andmuddy after the storm, and dark as the darkest midnight; brushing against the rustling, thorny hedges, stumbling over heaps of stones, through the pools at the roadside, and upon the slippery grass; here and there crossing a stile at haphazard, with no guide but instinct; here stealing past a cottage, shrinking from the lamps of the doctor’s gig, which threw a suspicious light upon them. Helen, following, dragging her weary feet through the muddy ways, holding up the long skirts not intended for such usage in her arms, her veil over her face, felt herself shrink, too, when the light flashed upon them. But who could have supposed that it was the master of Fareham and his children that were out there in the muddy lanes? Once at the turnpike, where they were all as well known as the day, her father, whom she always saw before her, a vague, dark shadow withthe child in his arms, replied in a gruff feigned voice, with a fictitious country accent, which gave Helen a sharp shock, to the good-night of the gatekeeper. To avoid notice was one thing, to tell a practical lie was another. This, in the midst of her confused wretchedness, gave her a painful prick of sensation. Janey in her excitement had begun to prattle at first, but had been summarily silenced by her father, and now drooped upon his shoulder fast asleep, her face half hidden in the rough collar of his coat. Between the other two not a word passed. Helen was too miserable and too much bewildered to ask any questions; she followed submissively.
The little station was within about a mile of Fareham, but a mile is long when trudged through mud and rain by unaccustomed feet, in a gloomy night, and with a heavy heart. A late traingoing express to town which otherwise would have scorned this little station, had been arranged to stop there for the convenience of the man of business, the well-known Mr Goulburn, whose affairs were on too colossal a scale to be managed by the ordinary means of communication open to everybody. Sometimes he had special parcels to send by the guard: sometimes a clerk who had “run down” for some special directions, or an associate acting with him on some great city board, whose time was too valuable to permit the loss of a moment, took advantage of this train; and sometimes he himself, jumping into a dogcart the moment the latest guest had departed after a sumptuous dinner, had rushed up to town by it. The station-master and the porters were like his own servants, and the whole place all but kept for his convenience. He crept up to it now,keeping carefully in the shadow, out of the glare of its poor paraffin lamps.
“Keep yourself muffled up, and your veil down, and go and get the tickets,” Mr Goulburn said, in the low and peremptory tone in which he had throughout addressed Helen. She went without a word; she who had never in her life done any such thing for herself. The clerk peered at her through his wicket; the solitary porter stared as she stood alone on the little platform. She was left there by herself until the train came up, and the three persons who formed thepersonnelof the station had nothing to do but to stare at her, and ask about the luggage which she did not possess. When the train stopped with its usual little fret and commotion, Mr Goulburn suddenly came forward and plunged into an empty carriage. His high coat-collar, the slouch of his hat, and finally,the figure of the child asleep upon his shoulder concealed him effectually. Helen could not help wondering whether she were as effectually disguised, and the thought once more gave her a sharp pinch of pain. Why were they hiding themselves? There was not a word spoken while the train rushed on, tearing through that darkness which they had just traversed so slowly and painfully. Only once, and that when they were but just started, did any communication pass between the father and daughter. They both looked out towards the home they had left, though it was invisible as they left the little station. Upon the road close by the lights of a carriage were visible, slowly approaching. It was the carriage which, when Mr Goulburn was absent, was despatched to meet the last train on Saturday nights. The last train from Londonwas not due for half an hour, and the coachman came along at a leisurely pace, slowly climbing the road to meet his master, who was flying, disguised and shameful, in the other direction. The contrast was so strange that he looked at Helen, and their eyes met. Something piteous was in his look. It contained a whole world of misery, of consciousness, of appeal which was almost humorous, amidst the profundity of pain. She had asked no questions, she had scarcely ventured to form to herself an idea of what the cause of this flight could be, but for the first time her heart was touched.
“Does she not tire you, lying on your shoulder? I could take her a little, papa,” she said. She could think of no other way of showing her sympathy. He shook his head and pressed the child closer to him. Was it that the touch of her innocence made him feelless guilty? Was it that to convince himself of the strength of the natural affection in him made him think himself a better man? or was it only the one real and true sentiment which may still preserve the least worthy from perdition? Helen looked somewhat wistfully at her little sister, lying in all theabandonof childish sleep, helpless yet omnipotent, across her father’s breast. She had never been a favourite like little Janey. No passion of parental affection had ever been lavished upon her, and, in consequence, she knew her father better, and perhaps secretly trusted him less, than children ought to do—though she had never said this even to herself. But for the moment, she sitting alone opposite to them, carried off from all her anchors, swept into some wild sea of the unknown, looked at them wistfully, and envied the father and the child.
In a few hours more Helen understood much more perfectly what the metaphor meant which we have just employed. At midnight they embarked in a steamer which, after feeling its way down the river through a thousand dangers, plunged into the Channel just as daybreak made the rough waves and flying foam visible. It was a small, old, almost worn-out boat, and the voyage was one of the longer and cheaper ones which tempt the passengers from the ordinary routes, to their profound suffering and repentance. Helen had never been at sea before. She lay trembling while the vessel creaked and plunged, not knowing what to reply to Janey’s inquiry why the ship went up and down. Why, indeed? It seemed to do so on purpose, tossing them up one moment and down the other with that sickening repetition which helps to make up theagony of a voyage to the inexperienced. In the morning, in the perplexing and painful daylight of which Helen felt afraid, she did not know why, they landed on foreign soil. Her father had changed during the night, she could not tell how. Was it possible that already on the previous evening he had worn the large whiskers and carefully smoothed hair which seemed to have grown lighter, redder, than it used to be? She scarcely knew him when he came on deck, and he gave her an uneasy look when he met her eye. She did not, however, suspect the truth as yet, nor did she in the least understand his disguise. She was only full of alarm and wonder, not knowing what to think.
“Whereare we going, papa?” Helen had walked some way, bewildered and wondering, through the foreign streets, confused by the strange language round her, the unfamiliar look of everything, the strangeness of her situation altogether. They had set out walking, and seemed, she thought, to be going on vaguely from street to street without any aim, passing hotel after hotel, at any of which she would have been glad to rest and collect her thoughts after the rough voyage and all the agitations of the night. “Where are you doing to take us, papa?” said little Janey, running along by his side. The child was pale, too, and her pretty, costly clothes had already acquired that look of crumpled finery which garments too good for common use so easily assume. Helen, too, had found it very difficult to manage her dress, with its train, made for no greater exertion than to sweep over the velvet lawns at Fareham. It had dropped from her hand now and then. It had got crushed and crumpled and a little soiled with the wet deck. It looked like a dress that had been worn all night. The signs of the night journey and rough sea were unmistakable upon them. Mr Goulburn made no reply. He murmured something to soothe the little girl, but made no answer to Helen. Their questions, however, seemed to rouse him to action. He went into a shop which was full ofarticles de voyage, and there bought alarge second-hand portmanteau, considerably battered, and one of those iron-bound trunks which are used by Continental travellers. Then he put a purse into Helen’s hand, and took her to the door of another shop, in which were exhibited all kinds of feminine apparel. “Buy what is wanted for yourself andher,” he said. Helen had scarcely ever in her life so much as entered a shop alone, but necessity overcomes everything, even the shy inexperience of a girl. She went in submissively, trembling to face the brisk saleswoman, all her schoolroom French deserting her in this earliest emergency. Nevertheless, she managed to do what was absolutely essential. As for Janey, she proved herself much more a woman of the world than her elder sister. The whole adventure was a frolic to Janey—a frolic which the voyage had unpleasantly interrupted,but which had now regained its jollity and excitement. She made her choice among the different dresses exhibited to them with unfailing promptitude. “I am doing to have this,” she said in her childish peremptory tone, to the great delight of the shopwomen, who gathered round her, offering her their wares. The little English child, recovering all the vivacity of her childish spirits, and excited by the laughter and flatteries, though she did not understand them, of the French milliners, was an amusing little figure, and the scene like a scene in a comedy. Janey inspected all the garments, feeling the texture with her baby fingers, assuming a hundred little airs of importance. She chattered without ceasing, a perpetual flood of remarks, while the women laughed and admired.
“What does she say?” they asked the one among them who partially justifiedthe “Ici on parle Anglais,” in the shop-window.
“Elle est délicieuse,” the shopwoman said; “elle est jolie comme un cœur: et d’un goût!”
Janey did not understand a word, but all the same knew she was being applauded, and her little head was turned by the notice bestowed upon her. “We came without any boxes or frocks or anything, and papa is doing to let me buy whatever I like,” said Janey.
The women were curious beyond description when this was rapidly reported to them by the one who understood. All this strange little scene went on while Helen, still half dazed, stammered out her orders in her faltering, imperfect French, and accepted timidly what was offered to her. The colour came to her cheeks, and a painful prick of life to her being, when she heard her little sister’s indiscreet explanation. “We left all our things behind—by mistake,” she said, trembling, a tingling, smarting blush dyeing her face. The timid falsehood redoubled her own confusion, but it did not do much more. It changed, Helen thought, the looks of the women. They followed her about, she fancied, trying to elicit further revelations from Janey, pressing every kind of outfit upon her; watching her as if—— What did they imagine? Did they think she would steal something? Helen’s heart swelled so in her simplicity that she thought it would burst. She held Janey’s hand closely in her own, and squeezed it tight. “Don’t talk so, don’t talk so,” she whispered. And then asked herself, with an indescribable pang, why should not the child talk? A grey light of knowledge, a vague, miserable twilight of consciousness, like the first lightening of a gloomydawn, was stealing over her. When she had made her purchases—two frocks for Janey, the simplest which that little heroine could be prevailed on to accept, and a plain dark dress for herself, and a supply of underclothing,—she found her father at the door, with the box he had bought upon a cab. This was how they were provided with the luggage which is indispensable to respectability. Helen could not but look at him with different eyes, now that she felt herself a party to this fraud, which she began to be conscious of, without knowing what it meant. What did it mean? Almost involuntarily unawares had not she herself made a false statement in explanation of the extraordinary straits in which they were placed? She watched her father, and found him altered, she could scarcely tell how. His hair had changed its colour; his beard had grown miraculously in a single night. What did it mean? Her heart ached with the question, but she did not know how to reply.
He took them to the railway after this—to the railway again, after all their past fatigue. He was not negligent, however, of their comfort, but made them eat at the buffet, and took acoupéfor them, filling it with all the picture-books and papers he could find, with baskets of fruit and chocolate and bonbons. “Here is a corner where my little Janey can go to sleep,” he said, putting the child tenderly into it when the train had started. Janey jumped upon his knee, and began to chatter and give him an account of her own achievements at the shop.
“They understood me,” said the little thing, “better than Helen. I can’t speak French, but they understood me better than Helen. Papa, do you hear? theyunderstood me——” Here she paused and gave a sudden cry. She had a pretty way of calling the attention of the careless listener, drawing his face round with her little hand upon his chin. “Papa!” she said, in great alarm, “you have dot hair on your chin, and it moves. Oh! papa!”
His face grew crimson. He turned the child down from his knee, giving her a sudden sharp blow on the cheek with his open hand—a blow which was nothing, yet like a revolution of earth and heaven to Janey, and to Helen too. Then, muttering a curse under his breath, he turned to Helen, who was watching him, pale with terror and wonder and indignation. “Well!” he said, defiantly; “out with it! You are a spy upon me too. Let me hear what you have got to say.”
“I have nothing to say, papa,” said Helen, trembling. She looked at him wistfully, with miserable insight in hereyes. She saw now that it was all false—hair and complexion and even expression. It seemed to her, as she looked at him, that it was not her father at all; that it was some strange masquerader of whose identity she never could be sure again. There had been no special devotion between Helen and her father; he had been kind but careless, and she too had been careless, though affectionate enough; but the miserable pang with which she seemed to lose her hold of him, and with him of everything solid and steadfast in the world, was more terrible than anything she had ever felt before. Her life seemed to be rent up by the roots. Janey, whimpering and astonished, took refuge in her corner, and by-and-by, worn out, dropped happily asleep. But Helen could not sleep. Worn out too, but watchful, she sat upright by her father’s side, not venturing to look at him, seeingthe long, flat, level lines of the country fly past the carriage-windows with a tedium that made her eyes ache. And he too sat bolt-upright, not looking at her. She had found him out; and he perceived that she had found him out; but yet she had not got a step farther, or discovered any real clue to the meaning of the flight which she shared.
They travelled all that night, the second since they left home, Janey sleeping in her corner, but Helen sitting sleepless, though worn to death; and next day in the forenoon stopped at a sleepy little French town, by a slow, pale, chalk river, amid interminable lines of poplars. Words could not tell the weariness which possessed Helen, the overmastering desire she felt to lay herself down anywhere, it did not matter where; while at the same time the routine of the continued movement had got into her brain, and it seemed to havebecome natural to go on and on, watching those long lines of distance, those flying plains, monotonous and endless, those rivers and fields. When the train stopped with a jar, and with cramped limbs they stepped out and stood upon the ordinary soil, the stoppage itself was a shock to Helen’s nerves. It was midday of a bright October day when they drove over the stony pavement in a jumbling omnibus, and rattled into a large square inhabited by a cathedral and town-hall of imposing architecture, with two little soldiers in red uniforms lounging under an archway, and two people crossing the sunshine, going in different directions. The white houses, tall and trim, with their greenpersiennes, the great tower of the church cutting the blue sky, the two figures crossing the sunshine printed themselves vaguely on Helen’s mind. She could not see anythingplainly for that vision of her father always before her who was not her father. She did not like to look at him, yet saw his changed countenance and false beard all the time with that sense of the insupportable which only our own flesh and blood ever give us. She could not forget it as Janey forgot, from whose little mind the incident of the night had fled like last year’s snow. Janey ran into the bare, carpetless room at the inn, and climbed up upon the wooden chair at the window, and called to papa—“Why do they have all the curtains drawn at the windows, and why is there nobody in the street, and why are the soldiers so little, and what have they dot red trousers for?” cried Janey. The blow had gone from her recollection. She thought no more of that novelty of the beard. She had slept all night, and she was no longer tired, though she was pale.
“Do you mean to stay here, papa?” said Helen. It is dreadful to sit at table with any one and not to speak. She could not bear it; if he would not say anything to her, she must talk to him.
“It does not look a very interesting place, you mean? No picture-galleries or fine things to see. That is a pity; but if you do not object to it too much, it suits me to stay here for a little while.”
“I do not object at all, papa,” said poor Helen, ready to cry, “only—only——” She looked at him with wistful eyes.
“Only what? If you don’t object to me and everything about me, you should try not to look as if you did. Understand, once for all, thatIunderstand my own motives and you don’t. And I don’t mean to be forced to explain by any one, much less my own child.”
“Papa,” said Janey, “you souldn’t be cross. You dave me a slap last night,but I never was cross. I did not look like this,” and she covered her innocent forehead with the most portentous of frowns. “I forgave you,” said the child, mastering the “g” with an effort, and looking up at him with a countenance clear as the day, not like the troubled face of Helen. The man was more touched than words could say. He caught her up in his arms.
“Yes, my little darling,” he said, “I did; God forgive me! I gave this dear little cheek a tap. I may have done other things as wrong, but none that I regretted so much. But you forgive your poor old father, Janey? I would not hurt you, my pet, not a hair of your pretty head, for the world.”
“I knew you would be sorry, papa,” said the little girl, with the air of a little queen. Then she lifted up her tiny forefinger, with serious yet mischievous warning, “But you sould never be cross,” she said.
How different was Helen’s state from the innocent, tender play of the child! She sat immovable and looked on at this pretty scene, seeing her father’s countenance change, the hard lines melt, a tender light come over it. He kissed his little Janey with a kind of reverential passion. “I will try, my little love,” he said, as humble as a child. And while he kissed her half weeping, and she clung with both her little arms round his neck, Helen felt herself rigid as stone. She could not be touched even by that which was most pathetic in this little episode—the real emotion of the man whose conscience was certainly not void of greater offences, yet whose heart melted at the pretty majesty of his child’s reproof, her innocent counsel and authority. Helen sat and looked on like some one entirely outside, a worldapart from this tender union. She did not share the emotion of it, nor the sweetness. Her heart seemed made of lead; her eyes were dry as summer dust. She turned away from them, not to see the innocent rapture of the father and child. The bare littlesalle à manger, with its long table thinly covered; the bare board; the windows with their close white curtains; the all-prevailing odour of soup and cigars; the clashing of the ostler’s pails outside; the high-pitched voices; the language only half comprehensible,—made up a scene for her which she never forgot. Their strange meal was over—a dozen unknown dishes—and they had been left with a plate of fruit on the table and a bottle ofvin du pays, which Helen thought so sour. She was wearied to death, but she no longer felt that devouring desire to lie down and go to sleep. The pain had roused her; itseemed to her for the moment as if she could never sleep again.
Then she went up-stairs to the little bare bedroom above, where two white beds stood side by side, two windows with the same white, closely fixed curtains, a carpetless, curtainless room, with everything as bare and wooden, as clean and white, as could be desired. She had to open the new trunk and take out all their new things, which did not belong to her, which belonged to a fugitive, the daughter of a man who had fled from his own country and home in disguise, and at the dead of night. It seemed to her that she could never tolerate this livery of shame, or think of it save with a burning as of disgrace upon her countenance. Perhaps it was partly because she was so worn out that she took everything so tragically. She went out afterwards to see the town, following her father, who led little Janeyby the hand, delighted by all her demands. The little girl prattled without ceasing, asking questions about everything. “Why are they such little soldiers?” she said; “they are like the little men in my Swiss village; and why have they dot red trousers instead of red coats? Is it with walking in the enemy’s blood, papa? like the Bible,” said Janey.
“Hush, hush! there cannot be anything like that in the Bible, Janey.”
“Ah! that is because you don’t read the lessons. You should read the lessons every day,” said Janey, delighted with herrôleof counsellor, “like nurse, papa! How funny it would be when nurse went up-stairs and found only dolly in my little bed, and Janey gone away!” She laughed, and then looked at him with a look of examination more keen than that timid, wistful look of Helen’s. “But I like this,” she added; “it is funny. Why do thelittle children wear caps? And what funny little shoes, that make such a noise! And why do they all speak French, papa? Who taught them to speak French?” Janey, in her fresh wonder, put all the threadbare questions that everybody has put before. She skipped upon the rough stones by her father’s side, holding his hand tight; and the three people who were in the great square (besides the soldiers) looked upon the pair with kindly eyes, and pointed out to each other that the newly arrivedAnglaisworshipped his child. They have the domestic instinct above all—they adore their infants. “Buttiens,” they said; “is it madame the young wife who follows with a look somaussade?”
The sympathies of these spectators were all with the father and the child. Helen followed like a creature in a dream. The great, silent, empty, open cathedral,with its altars all dressed in artificial lilies, and the scent of incense still in the air, came into her silent picture-gallery with all its details distinct, yet strange; and the long line of boulevard with its trees, and the white houses with their veiled windows, and the clanking of thesabots, and the little soldiers in the archway. They gave her no pleasure as of a novel sight, but they completed the vague, feverish world around her, so dim to her mental perception, yet keenly clear to her outward eye in the sharp blueness of the sky, the more vivid tints of an atmosphere without smoke. They went over all the town thus, mounting to the ramparts, going through all the narrow streets: Janey dancing along with her hand in her father’s, Helen following, silent, like a creature walking in her sleep, taking in all the novel scene only as a background to the pain of her soul.
Thelittle city of Sainte-Barbe was the quaintest and most slumbrous of little French towns, and that is saying a great deal. The walls were intact and in good order, supplying the inhabitants with pleasant walks, which few people took advantage of. Their pretence at defence was antiquated and useless, but then there was nothing to defend nor any enemy intending to attack. From the ramparts you looked out upon a great plain bounded towards the north with hills, and dropping southwards into those low swelling slopes and hillocks which form the best vineyards. Sainte-Barbe was on the edge of a richwine country verging upon the Côte d’Or; but there were no vineyards close to the town, which rose up, with its cluster of towers, its high walls and peaked roofs, out of the plain. It is to be supposed that in former days it had been a centre of more important life, for the cathedral was large enough for a metropolis, and the great town-hall, with its fine belfry, looked like one of the warlike municipalities of the middle ages. These two great buildings stood and sunned themselves, resting from whatever labours they might once have known, in a sort of dull beatitude—the one with half-a-dozen erratic worshippers coming and going, the other with three little red-legged soldiers under its grand gateway. Now and then a tourist who had heard of these buildings stopped for a few hours on his way from Italy to Paris to see them; but the fame of them was fast fading out, nowthat nobody thinks of posting from Paris to Dijon, and it was the rarest thing in the world to see a stranger in the streets. For the first week the townsfolk said among themselves, “Tiens! voilà les Anglais!” when Mr Goulburn and his daughters appeared; but at the end of that time became familiar with the appearance of them. It was a curious life which they led at the Lion d’Or—in a quaint discomfort, which may be amusing to tourists in high spirits, but to the timid and troubled English girl was the strangest travesty of existence. The mixture of small discomforts with great troubles is perhaps the combination above all others which procures most entire and complete confusion in life. And the want of a room to sit in other than that wooden bedroom, where every movement of a chair jarred upon the bare planks, began after a while to mingle in Helen’s mind with all thepainful circumstances of their flight, so that she scarcely knew what it was that made her so wretched, so disjoined from all her past. Twice a day the little party ate in company with some of the best people in Sainte-Barbe. M. le Notaire, who was unmarried, an old bachelor, and M. le Maire, who was a widower, took their meals regularly at the Lion d’Or. They tied their napkins round their bottle of wine when they left after one meal, and tucked them under their chins when they next sat down. On Sunday there was an officer who came in his uniform, with his sword clanking, who impressed Janey with great awe, accompanied by his wife and their little boy andbonne, who sat down next her charge and dined too, cutting the child’s meat for him, and having a little wine poured out for her by her mistress from the family bottle. Janey could not eat her own dinner, so absorbed was shein watching this party. She pulled Helen’s dress to call her attention a dozen times in a minute. “Oh! what would nurse say?” she cried, with big eyes of astonishment. “Look, Helen! he has some of that that you would not let me have, and he is so little—much more little than me. And he has dot wine: and oh, look! he has put his knife in his mouth—he will kill himself. And now he has his hand in, the nasty little boy!”
“Cela amuse mademoiselle de voir manger mon petit,” said the lady across the table in a tone of offence.
Helen blushed as if she had been caught in a mortal sin. “Oh no, madame—only—elle ne sait pas——” she murmured in apology.
“He has dot his knife in his mouth, and that will kill him,” said Janey. “She ought to tell him. Oh, little boy, little boy!couteau—bouche!” she cried, withthe anxiety of her age to put everything right.
Mr Goulburn tried to apologise. “My little girl thinks it is her business to set everybody right. She takes it upon her to regulate my conduct and manners. I hope you will forgive the little impertinent. Besides, she is astonished to see thebonneby your side, madame, at table. It is contrary to our English usage. Forgive her,” he said.
“Oh,de rien, monsieur,” said the French lady, politely. “We all know that England is the most aristocratic of countries. Do not apologise; there is great good in that—thecanailleare kept in their place.”
“Thecanailleare in all places, madame,” said M. le Maire. “They are among us when we least suspect it. Persons of the best manners, the most irreproachable in appearance——”
“Ah, if M. le Maire takes the point ofview of the highest morals! It is well known that the blessed apostles were but fishermen and labourers,” said the lady; “but we could not now invite a sailor smelling of the sea, or a ploughman fresh from the fields, to eat with us. There are lines of demarcation.”
“Madame,” said the Maire, “I have been warned from the police of a person completelycomme il faut, handsome, young, tall, well brought up, a hero of romance—you would be enchanted with his description,—who has done everything that a man can do of perfidious and wicked—if he should pay us a visit here——”
“Ah, monsieur, what a dreadful idea! But perhaps it is evil companions, bad influences—and then, when one is young, everything may be recovered.”
“Withle beau sexeyouth is always the first of virtues,” said the Notaire.
“Listen—they are not always young;madame should have seen the journals of England a little time ago—monsieur here could tell us, no doubt. A great company of merchants in London has lately made bankruptcy. Impossible to tell you what ruin they have produced. The great, the small, widows and orphans, poor officers in retreat, little functionaries, priests—what in England they call clergymen—all ruined, without a penny, without bread!” said the Maire, throwing up his hands. “Mon Dieu!even to hear of it makes one suffer. And figure to yourself the chief—he who was first in thiscompagnie, a man rich as the Indies, livingen prince, and for whom nothing was too good, has taken flight, instead of ending his life with a pistol-shot, as would have been done in France—has taken flight, with enormously of money in his pockets! You have seen it, perhaps, in the journals. Such things happen only in England.Mon Dieu!hehas saved himself with the money of others. And one talks ofcanaille!” the Maire concluded, wiping his forehead. He was warm with indignation, feeling the force of his own eloquence.
Helen did not understand all this—or nearly all; but she caught a word now and then, and her father’s face filled her with alarm. It had been smiling enough at first, though with that drawn and artificial smile which she had only remarked of late; but by degrees Mr Goulburn’s head had dropped, he stooped over his plate, fixing his attention on that, yet now and then directed a furtive glance from under his eyebrows at the speaker. And his face grew ghastly pale, yet he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead with it. His hands trembled as he raised his glass to his lips. Thevin du payswas not likely to inspire much courage, but he drank a large quantity, large enough tomake the Maire and the Notaire stare. All this Helen remarked, though perhaps no one else did. He did everything he could to preserve appearances; but her attention was roused, and she was on the alert and saw everything, and almost more than everything. What had he to do with this story of disgrace and ruin? Some one came in at this moment, a stranger, who was placed in a seat on her other hand; but she was so intent upon her father that she did not even see who it was. There was a pause, which seemed terrible to her—and to him; but which to the others was a most natural and simple, nay, flattering moment of silence after the Maire’s impressive remarks.
“You say such things happen only in England; is no one ever bankrupt in France?” Mr Goulburn said at last.
“Alas!” said M. le Maire, “misfortune comes in all countries. But a Frenchcommerçantbears it—not so well as your countrymen, monsieur. I have known men who have undergone that and now hold up their heads again; and I have known men,ma foi!who could not bear it, who thought of nothing but a pistol-shot. One follows the customs of one’s country. I have heard that Englishmen grow fat upon it. Pardon! you understand that is a pleasantry. No one can have more respect for the English than I.”
“It is a pleasantry, M. le Maire, which an Englishman hears with very little pleasure,” said Mr Goulburn. Helen looking at him with her anxious eyes, felt that her father was glad of some cause for seeming angry, and caught at this justification of his own excitement. But while her mind was intent upon him, watching him with an eager anxiety and curiosity beyond words, she started tohear herself addressed on the other side. “Is it possible that it is Miss Goulburn? Can I be mistaken? a pleasant voice said in English. She turned round quickly, and found a fair-haired and very sunburnt young man, whom she did not at first recognise, and upon whom she looked with suspicion and alarm. Her fears had been excited, she could scarcely tell how or why. Every one who knew her seemed a possible enemy. Were they not fugitives, whatever might be the cause?
“You do not remember me,” said the new-comer; “which, perhaps, is not wonderful. I left Fareham four years ago, Miss Goulburn; but I think I cannot be mistaken in you. You were only a child then; and now!—but still I think it is you: and perhaps you will remember my name—Charley Ashton? I went to India——”
“Yes, I recollect. Are you goinghome now to—to Fareham?” Helen said, with fright in her eyes.
“That we should meet here of all places in the world! Yes, I am on my way home; and there is all about the cathedral in Murray, and besides, there is a bit of engineering I wanted to see, and I had a day to spare,—what a lucky chance for me! You, I suppose, are making the grand tour, as it used to be called. Travelling, like necessity, makes one acquainted with strange quarters. This is not much like Fareham, is it?” he said, with a laugh. That careless, happy laugh, without thought of evil! Helen looked at, admiring it as an old man might have done.
“No; we are only here—for a little while.”
She knew by instinct that this would be their last night at Sainte-Barbe, and that she must not encourage any renewalof acquaintance. The young man gazed at her with such a look of kindly inquiry, almost tender in the sympathy that mingled with it, that Helen felt the tears come to her eyes. He divined that there was something to be sorry for, and he was ready to be sorry and to sympathise, whatever the trouble might be—though the troubles, he said to himself with a smile, of the rich man’s daughter were not likely to be very hard to bear.
“That is like my luck,” he said; “unless you are going back to England, which would be the best of all. Then I should ask leave to follow in your wake. There is no one now to care much when I get home; a day or two sooner or later doesn’t matter. My mother is not there now to mind. And to tell the truth, Miss Goulburn,” said young Ashton, “I am just as glad to put off the first plunge. Poorold father! I daresay he’ll be glad to see me; but to findhernot only gone, but with another in her place!”
“Poor Mr Ashton was so lonely,” said Helen, coming out of her own troubles for one moment, “and Miss Temple is so kind: it does you good to speak to her. She never meant any harm. She was so sorry for him—do not be angry with Miss Temple. I think I love her,” the girl said, the tears slowly gathering in her eyes, “better—oh yes, a great deal better than any one—than any other woman in the world.”
“Do you?” he said, touched by the sight. Charley Ashton did not know how many other troubles in poor Helen’s heart found grateful outlet in those tears. They dropped upon her dress and frightened her lest any one else should see them, but the young man was altogethermelted by Helen’s emotion. “That shall be my best reason for loving—at least for liking her too,” he said. “Thank you for showing me how much you care for her. What a lucky inspiration I had to come to Sainte-Barbe! I had been just thinking of you, wondering if you would be much changed—if, perhaps, I should find you at Fareham.”
“I think I am very much changed,” she said, sadly shaking her head—while he looked at her, smiling, with a look of subdued yet tender admiration. He did not venture to look all he felt, yet he could not keep it from appearing.
“Yes, I think you are changed,” he said, with a confused laugh. She was thinking of the last week, he of the last five years. He had admired her then as a child—for Helen had been tall and precocious. Now he could not tell herhow much more he admired her as a woman, and Helen was too sadly preoccupied to interpret justly the lingering glance that dwelt upon her. She had never had any lover, nor was she at all aware that the vicar’s son had any special recollection of her; that he should recognise her at all, filled her with surprise. But at the same time the sense of something sympathetic by her side, of some one who was young like herself, and English, and looked kindly at her, gave the girl a sense of consolation. He laughed, but certainly he meant nothing unkind. The moment after, young Ashton gave Helen, all unawares, a sudden blow which forced her back upon herself. He said with a little eagerness, but calmly, as if it were the most ordinary question in the world, “Do you go back soon to Fareham? I have come home on sick leave.I shall have only a little while at home. I hope I shall see you while I am there.”
“Oh!” said Helen, trembling all over with the shock, “I do not know—papa has never told me. Perhaps—we may not be back for a long time; perhaps—not at all. I don’t know.”
“Not back at all! Has Mr Goulburn sold it?” young Ashton said, and his changed countenance grew long. He was as much disappointed as she was startled; and for a moment both looked, though from very different reasons, as though not at all indisposed to mingle their tears.
“I don’t know,” said Helen. She looked away from him, her voice shook,—there was trouble indescribable in her face. And he remembered that he had been gone for four years; that he had not heard very much about them for some timeback; that many changes might happen, especially in the fortunes of a man in business, however great he might be, and apparently beyond the assaults of fortune. What could young Ashton say or do to show his sympathy? He did not even know how far he might inquire.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. Helen looked up at him timidly, and gave him a little nod of assent, and a faint smile. She granted him his pardon freely. She thanked him for the feeling in his face, but she said nothing more. The secret was not hers, and she did not even know what the secret was. Meanwhile her father had begun to see what was going on. He had looked furtively from the corner of his eyes at the stranger, and had ended by remembering who he was; and he did not know what young Ashton knew, where hehad come from, what he might be doing there. When he saw that Helen was fully engaged in conversation, he got up softly and walked away. The sight of a face he had once known made his heart beat wildly, and filled him with a sickening sensation. He went out by a door behind, so as never to come within the stranger’s range of vision. What did he want here? and what would the girl tell him? Would she have the sense to hold her tongue? though, indeed, the very sight of her would be enough if young Ashton knew. He began, without a moment’s delay, to put back his clothes into his portmanteau, and prepare again for flight. Who would have thought that such a thing could happen here? Had the danger been greater, he would have understood. For the sudden appearance of pursuers in search of him, he was always prepared, but not for the ludicrous simplicity of a peril like this; a neighbour’s son! What evil genius had brought him here? It seemed a very long time before Helen came up-stairs. It had relieved her to see her father disappear, and she had yielded to the pleasure of talking to her contemporary, her old friend (as she thought). But after all, in about ten minutes she had held out her hand to him timidly, rising up as she did so, to go away. “But I shall see you to-morrow?” he said. She only smiled faintly and said, “Perhaps,” but even as she said so shook her head. In her heart she felt certain that they would leave Sainte-Barbe that night.
And so they did. In France all the great trains go by night; there was one very late which called at Sainte-Barbe, on the way to Paris. The clatter and clang of the omnibus which met this traindisturbed the whole town at midnight so much, that M. le Maire had set every kind of machinery in motion to have it discontinued; but as the convenience of the two extremities of the railway, Marseilles and Paris, forbade this, the authorities paid no attention to the protest of Sainte-Barbe. The few guests in the Lion d’Or felt a double grievance this night, in that the omnibus, after making its usual noisy circuit from the stables, waited, pawing and champing for five minutes, under theporte cochère, having baggage placed upon it, and carrying away travellers at that hour. Who could they be? Oh,les Anglais: that went without saying. Certainlyles Anglais; they were the sort of people who would do such a thing simply because it was unlike the rest of the world—though it was the action of a fiend, the landlady exclaimed afterwards, to take such aninfant from her rest at such an hour. Young Ashton was still astir, smoking his cigar out of the window with a quite unnecessary regard for the feelings of his hosts, when the omnibus turned out of the great doorway. He thought he saw a pale face look up at his window in the uncertain glimmer of the moon, which was dim with flying clouds, and he let his cigar drop on the head of an ostler below in consternation. Could it be that they had gone away? “Gone away, because I am here!” this young man said to himself. But it seemed a thing too impossible to be true.