But his mother did not echo his cry. Her strained hand fell upon her lap with a certain relaxation and relief; her gaze grew less rigid; incomprehensible moisture came to her eyes. "Oh, Arthur, there's comfort in it!" said Mrs. Vincent, looking like herself again. "She's taken Mary, G.o.d bless her! she's known what she was doing. Now I'm more easy; Williams, you can sit down and tell us the rest."

"Go on!" cried Vincent, fiercely. "Good heavens! what good can a blundering country girl do here?--go on."

The women thought otherwise; they exchanged looks of sympathy and thankfulness; they excited the impatient young man beside them, who thought he knew the world, into the wildest exasperation by that pause of theirs. His mother even loosed her bonnet off her aching head, and ventured to lean back under the influence of that visionary consolation; while Vincent, aggravated to the intolerable pitch, sprang up, and, once more seizing Williams by the arm, shook her unawares in the violence of his anxiety. "Answer me!" cried the young man; "you tell us everything but the most important of all. Besides this girl--and Mary--who was with my sister when she went away?"

"Oh Lord! you shake the breath out of me, Mr. Arthur--you do," cried the woman. "Who? why, who should it be, to be sure, but him as had the best right after yourself to take Miss Susan to her mamma? You've crossed her on the road, poor dear," said the adherent of the house, wringing her hands; "but she was going to her ma--that's where she was going. Mr.

Arthur's letter gave her a turn; and then, to be sure, when Mr. Fordham came, the very first thing he thought upon was to take her to her mamma."

Vincent groaned aloud. In his first impulse of fury he seized his hat and rushed to the door to pursue them anyhow, by any means. Then, remembering how vain was the attempt, came back again, dashed down the hat he had put on, and seized upon the railway book in his pocket, to see when he could start upon that desperate mission. Minister as he was, a muttered curse ground through his teeth--villain! coward!

destroyer!--curse him! His pa.s.sion was broken in the strangest way by the composed sounds of his mother's voice.

"It was very natural," she said, with dry tones, taking time to form the words as if they choked her; "and of course, as you say, Williams, Mr.

Fordham had the best right. He will take her to his mother's--or--or leave her in my son's rooms in Carlingford; and as she has Mary with her--Arthur," continued his mother, fixing a warning emphatic look upon him as he raised his astonished eyes to her face, "you know that is quite right: after you--Mr. Fordham is--the only person--that could have taken care of her in her journey. There, I am satisfied. Perhaps, Williams, you had better go to bed. My son and I have something to talk of, now I feel myself."

"I'll go light the fire, and get you a cup of tea--oh Lord! what Miss Susan would say if she knew you were here, and had got such a fright!"

cried the old servant; "but now you're composed, there's nothing as'll do you good like a cup of tea."

"Thank you--yes; make it strong, and Mr. Arthur will have some too,"

said the widow; "and take care the kettle is boiling; and then, Williams, you must not mind us, but go to bed."

Vincent threw down his book, and stared at her with something of that impatience and half-contempt which had before moved him. "If the world were breaking up, I suppose women could still drink tea!" he said, bitterly.

"Oh, Arthur, my dear boy," cried his mother, "don't you see we must put the best face on it now? Everybody must not know that Susan has been carried away by a---- O G.o.d, forgive me! don't let _me_ curse him, Arthur. Let us get away from Lonsdale, dear, before we say anything.

Words will do no good. Oh, my dear boy, till we know better, Mr. Fordham is Susan's betrothed husband, and he has gone to take care of her to Carlingford. Hush--don't say any more. I am going to compose myself, Arthur, for my child's sake," cried the mother, with a smile of anguish, looking into her son's face. How did she drive those tears back out of her patient eyes? how did she endure to talk to the old servant about what was to be done to-morrow--and how the sick lady was next door--till the excited and shivering attendant could be despatched up-stairs and got out of the way? Woman's weaker nature, that could mingle the common with the great; or woman's strength, that could endure all things--which was it? The young man, sitting by in a sullen, intolerable suspense, waiting till it was practicable to rush away through the creeping gloom of night after the fugitives, could no more understand these phenomena of love and woe, than he could translate the distant mysteries of the spheres.

CHAPTER XVII.

Early morning, but black as midnight; bitter cold, if bitterer cold could be, than that to which they entered when they first came to the deserted house; the little parlour, oh, so woefully trim and tidy, with the fire laid ready for lighting, which even the mother, anxious about her son, had not had the heart to light; the candle on the table between them lighting dimly this speechless interval; some shawls laid ready to take with them when they went back again to the earliest train; Mrs.

Vincent sitting by with her bonnet on, and its veil drooping half over her pale face, sometimes rousing up to cast hidden looks of anxiety at her son, sometimes painfully saying something with a vain effort at smiling--what o'clock was it? when did he think they could reach town?--little ineffectual attempts at the common intercourse, which seemed somehow to deepen the dreadful silence, the shivering cold, the utter desolation of the scene. Such a night!--its minutes were hours as they stole by noiseless in murderous length and tedium--and the climax of its misery was in the little start with which Mrs. Vincent now and then woke up out of her own thoughts to make that pitiful effort to talk to her son.

They were sitting thus, waiting, not even venturing to look at each other, when a sudden sound startled them. Nothing more than a footstep outside approaching softly. A footstep--surely two steps. They could hear them far off in this wonderful stillness, making steady progress near--nearer. Mrs. Vincent rose up, stretching her little figure into a preternatural hysteric semblance of height. Who was it? Two people--surely women--and what women could be abroad at such an hour?

One lighter, one heavier, irregular as female steps are, coming this way--this way! Her heart fluttered in the widow's ears with a sound that all but obliterated those steps which still kept advancing. Hark, sudden silence! a pause--then, oh merciful heaven, could it be true? a tinkle at the bell--a summons at the closed door.

Mrs. Vincent had flown forth with open arms--with eyes blinded. The poor soul thought nothing less than that it was her child returned. They carried her back speechless, in a disappointment too cruel and bitter to have expression. Two women--one sober, sleepy, nervous, and full of trouble, unknown to either mother or son--the other with a certain dreadful inspiration in her dark face, and eyes that gleamed out of it as if they had concentrated into them all the blackness of the night.

"You are going back, and so am I," Mrs. Hilyard said. "I came to say a word to you before I go away. If I have been anyhow the cause, forgive me. G.o.d knows, of all things in the world the last I dreamt of was to injure this good woman or invade her innocent house. Do you know where they have gone?--did she leave any letters?--Tell me. She shall be precious to me as my own, if I find them out."

Mrs. Vincent freed herself from her son's arms, and got up with her blanched face. "My daughter--followed me--to Carlingford," she said, in broken words, with a determination which sat almost awful on her weakness. "We have had the great misfortune--to cross each other--on the way. I am going--after her--directly. I am not afraid--of my Susan. She is all safe in my son's house."

The others exchanged alarmed looks, as they might have done had a child suddenly a.s.sumed the aspect of a leader. She, who could scarcely steady her trembling limbs to stand upright, faced their looks with a dumb denial of her own anguish. "It is--very unfortunate--but I am not anxious," she said, slowly, with a ghastly smile. Human nature could do no more. She sank down again on her seat, but still faced them--absolute in her self-restraint, rejecting pity. Not even tears should fall upon Susan's sweet name--not while her mother lived to defend it in life and death.

The Carlingford needlewoman stood opposite her, gazing with eyes that went beyond that figure, and yet dwelt upon it, at so wonderful a spectacle. Many a terrible secret of life unknown to the minister's gentle mother throbbed in her heart; but she stood in a pause of wonder before that weaker woman. The sight of her stayed the pa.s.sionate current for a moment, and brought the desperate woman to a pause. Then she turned to the young man, who stood speechless by his mother's side--

"You are a priest, and yet you do not curse," she said. "Is G.o.d as careless of a curse as of a blessing? _She_ thinks He will save the Innocents yet. She does not know that He stands by like a man, and sees them murdered, and shines and rains all the same. G.o.d! No--He never interferes. Good-bye," she added, suddenly, holding out to him the thin hand upon which, even in that dreadful moment, his eye still caught the traces of her work, the scars of the needle, and stains of the coa.r.s.e colour. "If you ever see me again, I shall be a famous woman, Mr.

Vincent. You will have a little of the trail of my glory, and be able to furnish details of my latter days. This good Miss Smith here will tell you of the life it was before; but if I should make a distinguished end after all, come to see me then--never mind where. I speak madly, to be sure, but you don't understand me. There--not a word. You preach very well, but I am beyond preaching now--Good-bye."

"No," said Vincent, clutching her hand--"never, if you go with that horrible intention in your eyes; I will say no farewell to such an errand as this."

The eyes in their blank brightness paused at him for a moment before they pa.s.sed to the vacant air on which they were always fixed--paused with a certain glance of troubled amus.e.m.e.nt, the lightning of former days. "You flatter me," she said, steadily, with the old habitual movement of her mouth. "It is years since anybody has taken the trouble to read any intention in my eyes. But don't you understand yet that a woman's intention is the last thing she is likely to perform in this world? We do have meanings now and then, we poor creatures, but they seldom come to much. Good-bye, good-bye!"

"You cannot look at me," said Vincent, with a conscious incoherence, reason or argument being out of the question. "What is it you see behind there? Where are you looking with those dreadful eyes?"

She brought her eyes back as he spoke, with an evident effort, to fix them upon his face. "I once remarked upon your high-breeding," said the strange woman. "A prince could not have shown finer manners than you did in Carlingford, Mr. Vincent. Don't disappoint me now. If I see ghosts behind you, what then? Most people that have lived long enough, come to see ghosts before they die. But this is not exactly the time for conversation, however interesting it may be. If you and I ever see each other again, things will have happened before then; you too, perhaps, may have found the ghosts out. I appoint you to come to see me after you have come to life again, in the next world. Good-night. I don't forget that you gave me your blessing when we parted last."

She was turning away when Mrs. Vincent rose, steadying herself by the chair, and put a timid hand upon the stranger's arm. "I don't know who you are," said the widow; "it is all a strange jumble; but I am an older woman than you, and a--a minister's wife. You have something on your mind. My son is frightened you will do something--I cannot tell what.

You are much cleverer than I am; but I am, as I say, an older woman, and a--a minister's wife. I am not--afraid of anything. Yes! I know G.o.d does not always save the Innocents, as you say--but He knows why, though we don't. Will you go with me? If you have gone astray when you were young," said the mild woman, raising up her little figure with an ineffable simplicity, "I will never ask any questions, and it will not matter--for everybody I care for knows me. The dreadful things you think of will not happen if we go together. I was a minister's wife thirty years. I know human nature and G.o.d's goodness. Come with me."

"Mother, mother! what are you saying?" cried Vincent, who had all the time been making vain attempts to interrupt this extraordinary speech.

Mrs. Hilyard put him away with a quick gesture. She took hold of the widow's hand with that firm, supporting, compelling pressure under which, the day before, Mrs. Vincent had yielded up all her secrets. She turned her eyes out of vacancy to the little pale woman who offered her this protection. A sudden mist surprised those gleaming eyes--a sudden thrill ran through the thin, slight, iron figure, upon which fatigue and excitement seemed to make no impression. The rock was stricken at last.

"No--no," she sighed, with a voice that trembled. "No--no! the lamb and the lion do not go together yet in this poor world. No--no--no. I wonder what tears have to do in my eyes; ah, G.o.d in the skies! if you ever do miracles, do one for this woman, and save her child! Praying and crying are strange fancies for me--I must go away, but first," she said, still holding Mrs. Vincent fast--"a woman is but a woman after all--if it is more honourable to be a wicked man's wife than to have gone astray, as you call it, then there is no one in the world who can breathe suspicion upon me. Ask this other good woman here, who knows all about me, but fears me, like you. Fears me! What do you suppose there can be to fear, Mr. Vincent, you who are a scholar, and know better than these soft women," said Mrs. Hilyard, suddenly dropping the widow's hand, and turning round upon the young minister, with an instant throwing off of all emotion, which had the strangest horrifying effect upon the little agitated company, "in a woman who was born to the name of Rachel Russell, the model English wife? Will the world ever believe harm, do you imagine, of such a name? I will take refuge in my ancestress. But we go different ways, and have different ends to accomplish," she continued, with a sudden returning gleam of the subdued horror--"Good-night--good-night!"

"Oh, stop her, Arthur--stop her!--Susan will be at Carlingford when we get there; Susan will go nowhere else but to her mother," cried Mrs.

Vincent, as the door closed on the nocturnal visitors--"I am as sure--as sure----! Oh, my dear, do you think I can have any doubt of my own child? As for Susan going astray--or being carried off--or falling into wickedness--Arthur!" said his mother, putting back her veil from her pale face, "now I have got over this dreadful night, I know better--n.o.body must breathe such a thing to me. Tell her so, dear--tell her so!--call her back--they will be at Carlingford when we get there!"

Vincent drew his mother's arm through his own, and led her out into the darkness, which was morning and no longer night. "A few hours longer and we shall see," he said, with a hard-drawn breath. Into that darkness Mrs. Hilyard and her companion had disappeared. There was another line of railway within a little distance of Lonsdale, but Vincent was at pains not to see his fellow-travellers as he placed his mother once more in a carriage, and once more caught the eye of the man whose curious look had startled him. When the grey morning began to dawn, it revealed two ashen faces, equally speechless and absorbed with thoughts which neither dared communicate to the other. They did not even look at each other, as the merciful noise and motion wrapped them in that little separate sphere of being. One possibility and no more kept a certain coherence in both their thoughts, otherwise lost in wild chaos--horrible suspense--an uncertainty worse than death.

CHAPTER XVIII.

It was the very height of day when the travellers arrived in Carlingford. It would be vain to attempt to describe their transit through London in the bustling sunshine of the winter morning after the vigil of that night, and in the frightful suspense and excitement of their minds. Vincent remembered, for years after, certain cheerful street-corners, round which they turned on their way from one station to another, with shudders of recollection, and an intense consciousness of all the life circulating about them, even to the att.i.tudes of the boys that swept the crossings, and their contrast with each other. His mother made dismal attempts now and then to say something; that he was looking pale; that after all he could yet preach, and begin his course on the Miracles; that it would be such a comfort to rest when they got home; but at last became inaudible, though he knew by her bending across to him, and the motion of those parched lips with which she still tried to smile, that the widow still continued to make those pathetic little speeches without knowing that she had become speechless in the rising tide of her agony. But at last they reached Carlingford, where everything was at its brightest, all the occupations of life afloat in the streets, and sunshine, lavish though ineffectual, brightening the whole aspect of the town. When they emerged from the railway, Mrs.

Vincent took her son's arm, and for the last time made some remark with a ghastly smile--but no sound came from her lips. They walked up the sunshiny street together with such silent speed as would have been frightful to look at had anybody known what was in their hearts. Mrs.

Pigeon, who was coming along the other side, crossed over on purpose to accost the minister and be introduced to his mother, but was driven frantic by the total blank unconsciousness with which the two swept past her; "taking no more notice than if he had never set eyes on me in his born days!" as she described it afterwards. The door of the house where Vincent lived was opened to them briskly by the little maid in holiday attire; everything wore the most sickening, oppressive brightness within in fresh Sat.u.r.day cleanliness. Vincent half carried his mother up the steps, and held fast in his own to support her the hand which he had drawn tightly through his arm. "Is there any one here? Has anybody come for me since I left?" he asked, with the sound of his own words ringing shrilly into his ears. "Please, sir, Mr. Tozer's been," said the girl, alertly, with smiling confidence. She could not comprehend the groan with which the young man startled all the clear and sunshiny atmosphere, nor the sudden rustle of the little figure beside him, which moved somehow, swaying with the words as if they were a wind. "Mother, you are going to faint!" cried Vincent--and the little maid flew in terror to call her mistress, and bring a gla.s.s of water. But when she came back, the mother and son were no longer in the bright hall with its newly cleaned wainscot and whitened floor. When she followed them up-stairs with the water, it was the minister who had dropped into the easy-chair with his face hidden on the table, and his mother was standing beside him. Mrs. Vincent looked up when the girl came in and said, "Thank you--that will do," looking in her face, and not at what she carried.

She was of a dreadful paleness, and looked with eyes that were terrible to that wondering observer upon the little attendant. "Perhaps there have been some letters or messages," said Mrs. Vincent. "We--we expected somebody to come; think! a young lady came here?--and when she found we were gone----"

"Only Miss Phoebe!" said the girl, in amazement--"to say as her Ma----"

"Only Miss Phoebe!" repeated the widow, as if she did not comprehend the words. Then she turned to her son, and smoothed down the ruffled locks on his head; then held out her hand again to arrest the girl as she was going away. "Has your mistress got anything in the house," she asked--"any soup or cold meat, or anything? Would you bring it up, please, directly?--soup would perhaps be best--or a nice chop. Ask what she has got, and bring it up on a tray. You need not lay the cloth--only a tray with a napkin. Yes, I see you know what I mean."

"Mother!" cried Vincent, raising his head in utter fright as the maid left the room. He thought in the shock his mother's gentle wits had gone.

"You have eaten nothing, dear, since we left," she said, with a heartbreaking smile. "I am not going crazy, Arthur. O no, no, my dear boy! I will not go crazy; but you must eat something, and not be killed too. Susan is not here," said Mrs. Vincent, with a ghastly, wistful look round the room; "but we are not going to distrust her at the very first moment, far less her Maker, Arthur. Oh, my dear, I must not speak, or something will happen to me; and nothing must happen to you or me till we have found your sister. You must eat when it comes, and then you must go away. Perhaps," said Mrs. Vincent, sitting down and looking her son direct in the eyes, as if to read any suggestion that could arise there, "she has lost her way:--perhaps she missed one of these dreadful trains--perhaps she got on the wrong railway, Arthur. Oh, my dear boy, you must take something to eat, and then you must go and bring Susan home. She has n.o.body to take care of her but you."

Vincent returned his mother's look with a wild inquiring gaze, but with his lips he said "Yes," not daring to put in words the terrible thoughts in his heart. The two said nothing to each other of the horror that possessed them both, or of the dreadful haze of uncertainty in which that Susan whom her brother was to go and bring home as if from an innocent visit, was now enveloped. Their eyes spoke differently as they looked into each other, and silently withdrew again, each from each, not daring to communicate further. Just then a slight noise came below, to the door. Mrs. Vincent stood up directly in an agony of listening, trembling all over. To be sure it was nothing. When nothing came of it, the poor mother sank back again with a piteous patience, which it was heartbreaking to look at; and Vincent returned from the window which he had thrown open in time to see Phoebe Tozer disappear from the door.

They avoided each other's eyes now; one or two heavy sobs broke forth from Mrs. Vincent's breast, and her son walked with a dreadful funereal step from one end of the room to the other. Not even the consolation of consulting together what was to be done, or what might have happened, was left them. They dared not put their position into words--dared not so much as inquire in their thoughts where Susan was, or what had befallen her. She was to be brought home; but whence or from what abyss neither ventured to say.

Upon their misery the little maid entered again with her tray, and the hastily prepared refreshment which Mrs. Vincent had ordered for her son.

The girl's eyes were round and staring with wonder and curiosity; but she was aware, with female instinct, that the minister's mother, awful little figure, with lynx eyes, which nothing escaped, was watching her, and her observations were nervous accordingly. "Please, sir, it's a chop," said the girl--"please, sir, missus sent to know was the other gentleman a-coming?--and please, if he is, there ain't nowhere as missus knows of, as he can sleep--with the lady, and you, and all; and the other lodgers as well"--said the handmaiden with a sigh, as she set down her tray and made a desperate endeavour to turn her back upon Mrs.

Vincent, and to read some interpretation of all this in the unguarded countenance of the minister; "and please, am I to bring up the Wooster sauce, and would the lady like some tea or anythink? And missus would be particklar obliged if you would say. Miss Phoebe's been to ask the gentleman to tea, but where he's to sleep, missus says----"

"Yes, yes, to be sure," said Vincent, impatiently; "he can have my room, tell your mistress--that will do--we don't want anything more."