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The Haute Noblesse Part 106

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No mention had been made of Uncle Luke by the girl, nor yet of Leslie's departure.

"Am I still dreaming?" Madelaine asked herself as she hastily dressed, "or has some fresh terrible disaster come upon us?"

"Upon _us_," she said, for the two families seemed so drawn together that one could not suffer without thrilling the other's nerves.

"Louise gone! It is impossible!"

She said that again and again, trying all the while to be cool and think out what were best to be done. She felt that it would be better not to alarm her father by waking him at that early hour, and that she could not arouse her mother without his knowing.

She was not long in deciding.

Uncle Luke had shown during the troubles of the past how he could throw aside his eccentricity and become a useful, helpful counsellor, and it seemed the natural thing to send a message up to him, and beg him to come down. Better still, to save time, she would run up there first.

Liza had not been gone a quarter of an hour before Madelaine was well on her way, after stealing silently out of the house.

The effort to be calm was unavailing, for a wild fit of excitement was growing upon her, and instead of walking up the steep cliff path, she nearly ran.

Would Uncle Luke be at home? He was eccentric and strange in his habits, and perhaps by that time out and away fis.h.i.+ng off some rocky point.

She scanned the rough pier by the harbour, and shuddered as the scene of that horrible night came back. But there was no sign of the old man there, neither could she see him farther away, and feeling hopeful that perhaps she would be in time to catch him, she hurried on, panting. As she turned a corner of the devious way, and came in sight of the cottage, with Leslie's house and mine chimney far up at the back, she stopped short, breathless and wondering, and with a strange reaction at work, suggesting that after all, this was some mythical invention on the part of the servant, for there, stood Duncan Leslie outside Uncle Luke's cottage awaiting her coming.

CHAPTER FIFTY THREE.

HER DEFENDER.

"Miss Van Heldre!"

"Mr Leslie! That woman came to our house this morning to say--Oh, then, it is not true?"

"Yes," he said slowly; "it is all true."

"True that--that you were hurt--that--that--Oh, pray speak! Louise-- Louise!"

"Gone!" said Leslie hoa.r.s.ely, and, sick at heart and suffering, he leaned back against the wall.

"Gone? Louise gone? Gone where?"

Leslie shook his head mournfully, and gazed out to sea.

"Why do you not speak?" cried Madelaine. "Can you not see how your silence troubles me? Mr Leslie, what is the matter? You were found hurt--and Louise--gone! What does it mean?"

He shook his head again.

"Where is Mr Luke Vine?" cried Madelaine, turning from him quickly.

"At the house."

"Then I have come here for nothing," she cried agitatedly. "Mr Leslie, pray, pray speak."

He looked at her wistfully for a few moments.

"What am I to say?" he said at last.

"Tell me--everything."

He still remained retentive; but there was a grim smile full of pity and contempt for himself upon his lips as he said coldly--

"Monsieur de Ligny has been."

"Monsieur de Ligny?"

"The French gentleman, the member of the _haute n.o.blesse_ who was to marry Miss Vine."

Madelaine looked at him wonderingly.

"Mr Leslie," she said, laying her hand upon his arm, and believing that she saw delirium in his eyes, consequent upon his injury, her late experience having made her p.r.o.ne to antic.i.p.ate such a sequel. "Mr Leslie, do you know what you are saying?"

"Yes, perfectly," he said slowly. "Monsieur de Ligny the French gentleman of whom Miss Marguerite so often talked to me, came last night, while Mr Vine was at your father's, and he was persuading Louise to go with him, when I interfered and said she should not go till her father returned."

"Yes?--well?" said Madelaine, watching him keenly.

"Well, there was a struggle, and I got the worst of it. That's all."

"That is not all!" cried Madelaine angrily. "Louise, what did she say?"

"Begged him--not to press her to go," he said slowly and unwillingly, as if the words were being dragged out of him.

"Yes?"

"That is all," he said, still in the same slow, half-dreamy way. "I heard no more. When I came to, the Vines were helping me, and--"

"Louise?"

"Louise was gone."

"Mr Leslie," said Madelaine gently, as in a gentle, sympathetic way she laid her hand upon his arm. "You seem to have been a good deal hurt. I will not press you to speak. I'm afraid you hardly know what you say.

This cannot be true."

"Would to Heaven it were not!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "You think I am wandering. No, no, no; I wish I could convince myself that it was. She is gone--gone?"

"Gone? Louise gone? It cannot be."

"Yes," he said bitterly; "it is true. I suppose when a man once gets a strong hold upon a woman's heart she is ready to be his slave, and obey him to the end. I don't know. I never won a woman's love."

"His slave--obey--but who--who is this man?"

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The Haute Noblesse Part 106 summary

You're reading The Haute Noblesse. This manga has been translated by Updating. Author(s): George Manville Fenn. Already has 517 views.

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