Cord and Creese Part 69

"Look," said Langhetti, in a mournful voice. "Saw you ever in all your life any one so perfectly and so faultlessly beautiful? Oh, if you could but have seen her, as I have done, in her moods of inspiration, when she sang! Could I ever have imagined such a fate as this for her?"

"Oh, Despard!" he continued, after, a pause in which the other had turned his stern face to him without a word--"Oh, Despard! you ask me to tell you this secret. I dare not. It is so wide-spread. If my fancy be true, then all your life must at once be unsettled, and all your soul turned to one dark purpose. Never will I turn you to that purpose till I know the truth beyond the possibility of a doubt."

"I saw that in her face," said Despard, "which I hardly dare acknowledge to myself."

"Do not acknowledge it, then, I implore you. Forget it. Do not open up once more that old and now almost forgotten sorrow. Think not of it even to yourself."

Langhetti spoke with a wild and vehement urgency which was wonderful.

"Do you not see," said Despard, "that you rouse my curiosity to an intolerable degree?"

"Be it so; at any rate it is better to suffer from curiosity than to feel what you must feel if I told you what I suspect."

Had it been any other man than Langhetti Despard would have been offended. As it was he said nothing, but began to conjecture as to the best course for them to follow.

"It is evident," said he to Langhetti, "that she has escaped from Brandon Hall during the past night. She will, no doubt, be pursued. What shall we do? If we go back to this inn they will wonder at our bringing her. There is another inn a mile further on."

"I have been thinking of that," replied Langhetti. "It will be better to go to the other inn. But what shall we say about her? Let us say she is an invalid going home."

"And am I her medical attendant?" asked Despard.

"No; that is not necessary. You are her guardian--the Rector of Holby, of course--your name is sufficient guarantee."

"Oh," said Despard, after a pause, "I'll tell you something better yet.

I am her brother and she is my sister--Miss Despard."

As he spoke he looked down upon her marble face. He did not see Langhetti's countenance. Had he done so he would have wondered. For Langhetti's eyes seemed to seek to pierce the very soul of Despard.

His face became transformed. Its usual serenity vanished, and there was eager wonder, intense and anxious curiosity--an endeavor to see if there was not some deep meaning underlying Despard's words. But Despard showed no emotion. He was conscious of no deep meaning. He merely murmured to himself as he looked down upon the unconscious face:

"My sick sister--my sister Beatrice."

Langhetti said not a word, but sat in silence, absorbed in one intense and wondering gaze. Despard seemed to dwell upon this idea, fondly and tenderly.

"She is not one of that brood," said he, after a pause. "It is in name only that she belongs to them."

"They are fiends and she is an angel," said Langhetti.

"Heaven has sent her to us; we most preserve her forever."

"If she lives," said Langhetti, "she must never go back."

"Go back!" cried Despard. "Better far for her to die."

"I myself would die rather than give her up."

"And I, too. But we will not. I will adopt her. Yes, she shall cast away the link that binds her to these accursed ones--her vile name. I will adopt her. She shall have my name--she shall be my sister. She shall be Beatrice Despard.

"And surely," continued Despard, looking tenderly down, "surely, of all the Despard race there was never one so beautiful and so pure as she."

Langhetti did not say a word, but looked at Despard and the one whom he thus called his adopted sister with an emotion which he could not control. Tears started to his eyes; yet over his brow there came something which is not generally a.s.sociated with tears--a lofty, exultant expression, an air of joy and peace.

"Your sister," said Despard, "shall nurse her back to health. She will do so for your sake, Langhetti--or rather from her own n.o.ble and generous instincts. In Thornton Grange she will, perhaps, find some alleviation for the sorrows which she may have endured. Our care shall be around her, and we can all labor together for her future welfare."

They at length reached the inn of which they had spoken, and Beatrice was tenderly lifted out and carried up stairs. She was mentioned as the sister of the Rev. Mr. Despard, of Holby, who was bringing her back from the sea-side, whither she had gone for her health. Unfortunately, she had been too weak for the journey.

The people of the inn showed the kindest attention and warmest sympathy.

A doctor was sent for, who lived at a village two miles farther on.

Beatrice recovered from her faint, but remained unconscious. The doctor considered that her brain was affected. He shook his head solemnly over it; as doctors always do when they have nothing in particular to say.

Both Langhetti and Despard knew more about her case than he did.

They saw that rest was the one thing needed. But rest could be better attained in Holby than here; and besides, there was the danger of pursuit. It was necessary to remove her; and that, too, without delay.

A closed carriage was procured without much difficulty, and the patient was deposited therein.

A slow journey brought them by easy stages to Holby. Beatrice remained unconscious. A nurse was procured, who traveled with her. The condition of Beatrice was the same which she described in her diary. Great grief and extraordinary suffering and excitement had overtasked the brain, and it had given way. So Despard and Langhetti conjectured.

At last they reached Holby. They drove at once to Thornton Grange.

"What is this?" cried Mrs. Thornton, who had heard nothing from them, and ran out upon the piazza to meet them as she saw them coming.

"I have found Bice," said Langhetti, "and have brought her here."

"Where is she?"

"There," said Langhetti. "I give her to your care--it is for you to give her back to me."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

ON THE TRACK.

Beatrice's disappearance was known at Brandon Hall on the following day.

The servants first made the discovery. They found her absent from her room, and no one had seen her about the house. It was an unusual thing for her to be out of the house early in the day, and of late for many months she had scarcely ever left her room, so that now her absence at once excited suspicion. The news was communicated from one to another among the servants. Afraid of Potts, they did not dare to tell him, but first sought to find her by themselves. They called Mrs. Compton, and the fear which perpetually possessed the mind of this poor, timid creature now rose to a positive frenzy of anxiety and dread. She told all that she knew, and that was that she had seen her the evening before as usual, and had left her at ten o'clock.

No satisfaction therefore could be gained from her. The servants tried to find traces of her, but were unable. At length toward evening, on Potts's return from the bank, the news was communicated to him.

The rage of Potts need not be described here. That one who had twice defied should now escape him filled him with fury. He organized all his servants into bands, and they scoured the grounds till darkness put an end to these operations.

That evening Potts and his two companions dined in moody silence, only conversing by fits and starts.

"I don't think she's killed herself," said Potts, in reply to an observation of Clark. "She's got stuff enough in her to do it, but I don't believe she has. She's playing a deeper game. I only wish we could fish up her dead body out of some pond; it would quiet matters down very considerable."

"If she's got off she's taken with her some secrets that won't do us any good," remarked John.

"The devil of it is," said Potts, "we don't know how much she does know.