The Shadow of a Sin Part 17

The face bent over her afforded answer sufficient.

"Love you?" he replied. "I do not think, Hyacinth, that I could love you more; to me it does not seem possible."

"If you were to lose me, then, it would be a great sorrow?"

"Lose you!" he cried. "Why, Cynthy, I would rather ten thousand times over lose my own life."

She liked to remember afterward how he drew her head upon his breast--how he caressed her and murmured sweet words of tenderness to her--how he told her of his love in such ardent words that the fervor of them lasted with her until she died. It was for the last time. A great solemn calm of despair fell over her. To-morrow she would be far away; his arm would never enfold her, his eyes never linger on her, his lips never touch her more. It was for the last time, and she loved him better than her life; but for her sin and folly, she would now have been the happiest girl in the wide world.

"My darling," he murmured, "as though weak words could tell how dear you are to me."

He kissed her trembling lips and then she broke from him with a great cry. She could bear no more. She fled through the pine grove, crying to herself with bitter tears: "If I could but die! Oh, Heaven, be merciful to me, and let me die!"

CHAPTER XIX.

"Good-night, Hyacinth," Lady Vaughan said, when, half an hour afterward, the girl went to her with a white face and cold rigid lips; "good-night.

I hope to see you something like yourself to-morrow--you do not seem well."

And for the last time, Hyacinth Vaughan kissed the fair, stately old face. "To-morrow--ah, where would she be to-morrow?"

"You have been very kind to me," she murmured, "and I am not ungrateful."

Afterward Lady Vaughan understood why the girl lingered near her, why she kissed the withered, wrinkled hands with such pa.s.sionate tenderness, why her lips opened as if she would fain speak, and then closed mutely.

She thought of Hyacinth's strange manner for several minutes after the young girl had quitted the room.

"That terrible news shocked her. She is very sensitive and very tender-hearted--the Vaughans are all the same. I am heartily glad she is to marry Adrian: he is gentle enough to understand and firm enough to manage her. I shall have no more anxiety about the child."

Hyacinth had looked her last on them, and had spoken to them for the last time. She stood in her room now waiting until there should be a chance of leaving the hotel unnoticed, then it suddenly struck her how great would be the consternation on the morrow, when she was missed.

What would Adrian do or say--he who loved her so dearly? She went to her little desk and wrote a note to him. She addressed it and left it on the toilet table of her room.

Then she went quietly down-stairs. No one was about. She opened the great hall-door and went out. Some few people still lingered in the grounds; she was not noticed. She walked down the long carriage-drive, and then stood in the street of the little town, alone. She found her way to the station. A great, despairing cry was rising from her heart to her lips, but she stifled it, a faint strange sensation, as though life were leaving her, came over her. She nerved herself.

"I must live until he is free," she said with stern determination--"then death will be welcome!"

They were no idle words that she spoke; all that life held brightest, dearest, and best, was past for her. Her only hope was that she might reach Loadstone in time to save Claude. She knew how soon she would be missed, and how easily she might be tracked. Suppose that they sent or went to her room and found it empty, and then made inquiries and learned that she had taken a ticket for Ostend? They could not overtake the train, but they could telegraph to Ostend and stop her. In that case she would be too late to save Claude. The station was full of people. She saw a lad among them--he seemed to be about fifteen--and she went up to him.

"Are you going to Ostend?" she asked.

He doffed his hat and bowed.

"I am going by this train," he replied. "Can I be of any service to the _Fraulein_?"

"I am always nervous in a crowd," she said--"will you buy my ticket?"

He took the money. He could not see her face, for it was veiled, but he could distinguish its white, rigid mystery, and, full of wonder, he complied with her request. In a short time he returned with the ticket.

"Can I do anything else for you, _Fraulein_?" he asked.

"No," she replied, thanking him; and all the way to Ostend, the lad mused over the half-hidden beauty of that face, and the dreary tones of the sad young voice.

"There is some mystery," he said; and afterward, when he had read the papers, he knew what the mystery was.

She was safely seated in the furthest corner of a second-cla.s.s carriage at last, her heart beating so that each throb seemed to send a thrill of fiery pain through her. Would she be in time? The train was an express, and was considered an unusually fast one, but it seemed slow to her--so slow. Her heart beat fast and her pulse throbbed quickly. Her face burned as with a flaming fire.

"What shall I do," she thought, with a terrified face, "if I fall ill, and cannot save him? Suppose--my brain is on fire now--suppose it becomes worse, and when the train stops I have no sense left to speak?

They will try him--they will sentence him to death before I arrive. He will perhaps be dead when I am able to speak. What shall I do?" And the dread so overpowered her that she cried aloud in her anguish.

"Are you ill?" asked a fellow-traveller, kindly.

"No, I was dreaming," she replied, hurriedly.

She pressed her hand on her hot brow--she tried to still the quick nervous beating of her heart; but all was in vain. The night was hot; the atmosphere seemed overcharged with electricity; there was not a breath of air stirring; the noisy clang of the wheels seemed to pierce her brain; a sound as of rus.h.i.+ng torrents filled her ears. She tried to calm herself--to steady those quivering nerves--to remember what she would have to say in a short time, when she would be standing before a tribunal of justice to save Claude's life. She tried and failed in the effort; she broke down and laughed a strange, unnatural laugh. The noise of the train drowned it, the monotonous clangor of the wheels dulled all other sounds. The next minute the overstrained nerves--the over-taxed brain--had given away, and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The train drew near to Ostend, and those who loved her had not discovered Hyacinth's flight. Lady Vaughan wondered she did not come down as usual to breakfast. Pincott went to see if she was up. She tapped at the door; there was no answer, and the maid went to tell her lady. "I am almost glad," said Lady Vaughan; "she looked very ill last night. She is sleeping; do not awaken her, Pincott."

But when noon came, and Hyacinth had not rung, Pincott went to her room again. She opened the door this time and walked in. The room was empty, the bed had not been slept in, and there was no trace of Miss Vaughan.

The woman turned quite white and sunk, half-fainting, on a chair. She was frightened. Presently, recovering herself a little, she looked round. "How foolish I am!" she thought. "Miss Vaughan must have gone down unknown to me and her room has been arranged." Still she trembled with a strange presentiment of dread. Suddenly her eyes fell upon the note addressed to Mr. Darcy--it was sealed. "There can be no harm in my giving him this," she said.

She went down-stairs and made inquiries about Miss Vaughan. No one had seen her--she could hear nothing of her. Then Pincott went to her lady.

It so happened that Mr. Darcy was chatting with her.

"What do you say?" interrupted Lady Vaughan, sharply. "You cannot find Miss Vaughan? Pray use your common sense, Pincott; do not say such absurd things."

But Adrian had caught sight of the note in the maid's hand. "What is this?" he asked.

"I found it in Miss Vaughan's room, sir," said Pincott; "it is addressed to you."

He took it from her and opened it. As he read a deadly pallor came over his face.

"Great Heaven!" he cried. "What can this mean?"

Lady Vaughan asked what had happened. He pa.s.sed the note to her and she read:

"I have looked at you and have spoken to you for the last time, Adrian.

I am going away and I shall never see any of you again. You will try to comfort Lady Vaughan. Pray Heaven my sin and my disgrace may not kill her.

"You will find out from the newspapers what I have gone to do; and oh, my lost dear love, when you read this, be merciful to me! I was so young, and I longed so for some of the brightness of life. I never loved him; and, as you will see, I repented--ah, me, so sorely!--before half the journey was accomplished. I have never loved any one but you--and that I have lost you is more bitter than death.

"Many people have died from less suffering than that which I am undergoing now. Oh, Adrian, I do not think I deserved this terrible punishment! I did not mean to do anything wrong. I do not ask you to forgive me! I know you never can. You will fling off all thought of me as of one unworthy. I told you I was unworthy, but I--oh, Adrian--I shall love you till I die! All my thoughts will be of you; and I pray to Heaven that I may die when I have achieved what I am going to do.

Living, you must loathe me; dead, you will pity me.