ON TO MEET HIS FATE.
Meanwhile, Alden Lytton sped on toward the city. He traveled by the express train, which stopped at but few stations.
About two o'clock in the afternoon the train made its longest pause, at a little station about midway between Wendover and Richmond, where it stopped twenty minutes for dinner.
Many of the passengers left the train to stretch their cramped limbs or to satisfy their hunger.
Alden Lytton got out and went into the waiting-room, when the first form his eye fell upon was that of Mary Grey.
She looked pale, weary and harassed, as she sat alone on one of the benches, with a small carpet-bag at her feet.
Now Alden Lytton's heart was so full of happiness that it expanded with affection for the whole human race, and even warmed with sympathy for this erring woman, who had once possessed and forfeited his faithful boyish love.
And now, in his compassion, he went to her and, smiling very kindly, he said:
"Why, Mrs. Grey! I am so surprised to see you here, and alone too!" he added.
"When, since I left Blue Cliff Hall, have you ever seen me when I have not been alone?" she inquired, with a sad smile.
"True," he answered, gently. "Even in a church, or a crowded parlor, you have still been ever alone. But why should this be so, while you have so many faithful friends? Miss Cavendish I know is—"
She put up her hand to stop him. She turned paler than before, and trembled as with a chill. For she had loved this man only, of all that she had fascinated and fooled; she had loved him utterly; and even now, when she bitterly hated him, she could not bear to hear her rival's name from his lips.
"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness,'" she murmured, in faltering tones. "Let us talk of something else. I came down here to bring some funds that I had collected from charitable friends for a poor family who were burned out near this village. And now I am going back by this train. Pray pardon my nervousness! But the crowd and bustle and excitement of a railway station always does make me very nervous."
"You need refreshment. Come to the table with me and have something. There is yet plenty of time," he said, kindly, offering her his arm.
He felt so safe and happy in his wisely placed affection and firmly based engagement to Emma Cavendish that he could afford to be very kind to this poor woman, although she had once possessed—and by her conduct forever forfeited—his honest youthful love.
He gave her his arm and led her away to the dining-room, where a crowd was collected at the refreshment table.
There was a whisper between two attendants as they passed by.
"Hush! That is the young fellow she has been waiting here to meet. It is a runaway marriage, bless you!"
This whisper reached the ears of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey.
Alden Lytton paid no attention to it, thinking that it referred to some "levanting" youth and girl who had chosen this station for their escapade.
But Mary Grey smiled grimly to herself as she heard it.
They had barely time to get a cup of coffee each before the warning shriek of the steam engine called the passengers to take their places.
Alden Lytton drew his companion's arm within his own, led her into the ladies' car, put her into a comfortable seat, and took his place beside her.
Purposely suggested by Mary Grey's own calculated actions while waiting at the station, a whisper had got around among the attendants that the lovely young lady in black had come down to meet her lover and elope with him; and from the attendants it had reached the ears of some of the passengers.
And now, as Alden Lytton placed himself innocently enough on the seat beside Mary Grey, the eyes of several of their fellow-travelers turned with curiosity toward them.
Certainly the demeanor of both rather favored the idea of their being a pair of engaged lovers.
Alden Lytton, with his beaming and happy face, and his careful attentions to his companion, wore the look of a successful suitor and prospective bridegroom. Mary Grey, with her pale, pretty face and nervous manner, had as much the appearance of a runaway girl, trembling and frightened at what she was daring.
Meanwhile the train whirled onward, bearing many passengers to happy homes or on pleasant visits; but carrying one among them on to crime and another to disaster.
As they drew near the end of the journey the crowd in the ladies' car was thinned out by the leaving of passengers at the smaller stations, until at length Alden Lytton and Mary Grey were left nearly alone and quite out of hearing of any fellow-traveler.
Then Alden said to her:
"I hope you have some plan of occupation and happiness for your future life."
"Yes," murmured Mary Grey, "I have some little prospect. I have the offer of a very good position in a first-class ladies' college near Philadelphia."
"I hope it will suit you."
"I do not know. I have promised to go on and see the institution and talk with the principal before concluding the engagement."
"That would be safest, of course," said Alden.
"And I should have gone on a day or two since, but the journey, with its changes from steamer to car and car to steamer, is really quite a serious one for me to take alone, especially as I always get frightened and lose my presence of mind in the terrible uproar of a steamboat landing or a railway station[."]
"Then you should never undertake such a journey alone," said Alden, compassionately.
"No, I know it. But yet I shall have to do so, unless I can hear of some party of friends going on in a few days whom I could join," sighed Mary Grey.
"I am not 'a party of friends,'" smiled Alden; "but I am one friend who will be pleased to escort you on that journey, as I am myself going to Philadelphia in a few days."
"You!" exclaimed Mary Grey, in well-affected astonishment.
"Yes, madam," replied Alden, with a bow.
"I did not know you ever went North at all," she added, lifting her eyebrows.
"I never yet have been north of Baltimore, strange to say," smiled Alden Lytton; "but I am going in a few days to Philadelphia to purchase a law library, and should be happy to escort you to your place of destination."
"You are very kind to me, and I am very grateful to you. I accept your offer, and will try to give you as little trouble on the journey as possible."
"Oh, do not speak of trouble! There will be none, I assure you," said Alden, pleasantly.
"You are very good to say so, at all events."
"What day would it suit you to go on?" inquired Alden.
"Any day this week—whenever it will be convenient to you. I am the obliged party and should consider your convenience."
"Not by any means! Any day this week would suit me equally. So I beg that you will please yourself alone."
"No."
"Let me be frank with you then and prove how little it really would matter to me whether we go to-morrow or any day thereafter. I have to select and fit up a law office, and I have to select and purchase a law library; and I do not care in the least which I do first," said Alden, with earnest politeness.
"Then, if it really is a matter of indifference to you, I think we will go to Philadelphia on Wednesday morning."
"Very well. I will make my arrangements accordingly. This is Monday night. We have one intervening day. Where shall I call for you on Wednesday morning?"
"You need not call. I will meet you on the Washington boat."
"Just as you please. I will be there."
The engine shrieked its terrific warning, slackened its speed, and ran slowly into the station.
"I will call a carriage for you," said Alden Lytton.
And he left his companion in the waiting-room while he went out and selected a good carriage for her use.
Then he came back, took up her traveling-bag, drew her arm in his own, and led her out to it.
"Where shall I tell the coachman to take you?" he inquired, when he had placed her comfortably in her seat.
"To the Misses Cranes', Old Manor, near the Government House," she answered.
Alden Lytton bowed and closed the door, gave the order to the coachman, and then walked off to his own old quarters at the Henrico House.
The carriage started, but had not gone more than a quarter of a mile when Mrs. Grey stopped it.
The coachman got off his box and came to the window to know her will.
"Turn into the old paper-mill road. I wish to call on a sick friend there before going home. Go on. I will keep a lookout and stop you when we get near the house."
The coachman touched his hat, remounted, and turned his horses' heads to the required direction.
Mary Grey sat close on the left-hand side of the cushion, and drew the curtain away, so that she could look through the window and watch their course.
The night was clear, starlit and breezy after the hot September day.
It was still early, and the sidewalks were enlivened by young people sauntering in front of their own houses to enjoy the refreshing evening air, while the porches and door-steps were occupied by the elders taking their ease in their own way.
But in the next mile the scene began to change, and instead of the populous street, with its long rows of houses and the cheerful sidewalks, there was a lonely road with detached dwellings and occasional groups of people. In the second mile the scene changed again, and there was an old turnpike, with here and there a solitary road-side dwelling, with perhaps a man leaning over the front gate smoking his pipe, or a pair of lovers billing and cooing under the starlit sky.
Mary Grey kept a bright lookout for the "haunted house," and presently she recognized it, and saw a light shining through the little front window under the vine-covered porch.
"He is there, poor wretch, sure enough, waiting for me. I feel a little sorry for him, because he loves me so devotedly. But heigho! If I do not spare myself, shall I spare him? No!" said Mary Grey to herself, as she ordered the coachman to draw up.
He stopped and jumped off his box, and came and opened the carriage door. But it was the door on the other side of the carriage, opposite the middle of the road, and not opposite the house, where she wanted to get out.
"Open the other door," she said.
But the negro's teeth were chattering and the whites of his eyes rolling, in fearful contrast with the darkness of his skin.
"Open the other door and let me out. I want to go into that house," repeated Mrs. Grey, a little impatiently.
"Dat dere house? Oh, laws-a-messy! Bress my soul, missy, you don't want to go in dat house! Dat's de haunted house! And oh, law, dere's de corpse lights a-burnin' in dere now!" gasped the negro, shudderingly, pointing to the dimly-lighted windows under the porch.
"You blockhead, those are the tapers in my friend's sickroom! Open the other door, I tell you!" said Mrs. Grey, angrily.
"'Deed—'deed—'deed, missy, you must scuse ole nigger like me! I dussint do it, missy! I dussint go on t'other side ob de carriage nex' to de ghoses at no price!" said the negro, with chattering teeth.
Mary Grey turned and tried to open the other door for herself, but found it impossible, and then turned again and said:
"Well, stand out of my way then, you idiot, and let me out of this door!"
The negro gave way, and she got out of the carriage into the middle of the dusty road.