CHAPTER V.
Fred Wilmot had obtained a year's leave from the general commanding at Mirzapatam, and had taken all his measures for their mutual flight.
He was to meet her at evening gun-fire, near the old ruined tomb in the baubool grove, when Aloodeen, his native valet, would bring his buggy. In this they would proceed to the branch line that joined the greater line at Allahabad, from whence they could take the great Peninsular Railway to Calcutta, long before reaching which all traces of them would be lost!
It was early morning when the scheme was planned; a whole day was to elapse ere it could be put in operation; yet it seemed to pass with frightful rapidity to Clare, who felt like one in a dream, or as if it was some other person, and not herself, who was to meet Wilmot at the tomb of Abu Mirza.
Her silence, her pre-occupation, her nervousness, more than all, the whiteness of her little face, could not fail to attract the attention of her husband who, with unwonted tenderness, bent over her, and, taking her cheeks between his hands, said,—
"Look up, little woman—why, what is the matter with you?"
She closed her eyes, which dared not meet his earnest, honest, and searching gaze.
He then took her little hands caressingly in his, and felt, with alarm, that though the atmosphere without was stifling, they were icy cold and trembling.
"Is there anything wrong, Clare? What is the matter with you, my darling little wife?"
Still she was silent, for her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and she could only sigh in her heart secretly.
"Oh, heaven—what am I to do? Avoid the temptation—flee the sin—yea, even confess all—ere it be too late!"
Then she thought of her husband's frigidity of manner, his intense sense of morality, religion, purity, and rectitude, and her timid heart died within her.
"God help us, child," said Cecil Thorne, "I hope that no illness has seized you."
He thought wildly over the several fever and cholera beds he had been beside of late, and the strong man felt his soul die within him with fear, as he saw alternately the wistfulness and wild excitement in his wife's eyes.
"A doctor must be summoned," he exclaimed; "qui hi—hollo, there, Chuttur Sing!"
"Oh, no, Cecil, dearest," said she, with something between a sob and a hysterical laugh; "it is only the heat that affects me—and the thunder," she added, as a peal went hustling through the sultry air overhead.
A storm came on; the rain fell in torrents, and Clare, while in the act of selecting the garments and necessaries she would have to take with her, and while carefully selecting and putting aside, for some other and worthier wife, it might be, the few jewels her husband's moderate means had enabled him to give her (Delhi bracelets of champac-work, and so forth), actually began to hope that, if the tempest of falling rain continued, the very flight for which she was preparing might be arrested, ere it was too late, and thus that her sore temptation might pass away!
The innocent words, the tender anxiety and trusting goodness of the man she was about to abandon and deceive, and the knowledge, that in time to come, there would be an amount of grief, shame, and sorrow for her, that would be known in its degree but to God and himself, wrung her heart, and filled her eyes with hot and blinding tears.
But the storm passed; the thunder died away beyond the hills that look down on the Jumna; the rain cooled the atmosphere, and the arid soil around the sun-baked cantonment soon absorbed it, to the last huge, warm drop that had fallen; and Clare knew that her lover would be truly, tenderly, and inexorably awaiting her at the old tomb, when the time of their fatal tryst came.
The cantonment ghuries—little gongs that hung near the guard-house doors—clanged the hours in succession, and in one more Clare knew that the sun would set. She was alone, for her husband was away, attending some sick beds; when he returned, she knew that her place would be vacant, and that she could never look upon his grave, earnest, and handsome face again. She sunk on her knees beside her bed, buried her face in her cold hands, and while she shivered in the agony of her conflicting thoughts, she prayed for strength to avoid her temptation, or that she might die in her mingled remorse and yearning love.
But her prayer was unheard: the hour came, and saw her, with a little travelling bag in her hand, stealing like a culprit from her husband's home, and taking the most unfrequented path to the tomb of Abu Mirza, the tiny white marble dome of which was glistening in the last rays of the sun above the golden bloom of the baubool trees. The brain of Clare seemed to reel; her temples felt on fire; all within her soul and around her seemed a mass of chaos, she could arrange, disentangle nothing; and almost in despair gave up the attempt to do so; but not the fatal design of meeting her former lover; for the die was cast!
In the distance she could hear the soldiers' children and some of the Christianised natives singing in the Mission School; their united voices came through the open windows on the calm pure air of the Indian night, and she could hear her husband accompanying them on an indifferent harmonium, so earnestly and humbly in the service of his Master, in the hymn he had translated from the Tembavani:—
"Whilst Thee, with tongues of splendour,
The orbs of heaven praise,
Whilst groves to Thee their voices,
With tongues of brilliance raise:
Whilst Thee, with tongues of joyance
All gay wood-warblers sing;
Whilst praise to Thee, wood-flowerets,
From tongues of fragrance fling:
And whilst with tongues of clearness,
The water-floods applaud Thee,
With the tongue that Thou hast given,
Shall I not daily laud Thee?"
"Poor Cecil—how unworthy I am of you!" thought she, and tears started to her eyes afresh as she thought of him and the morrow!
Her heart gave a convulsive leap and she stood still for a moment as the evening gun boomed over the cantonments when the sun set, and then the darkness fell instantly, as it always does in India where there is no twilight, and she saw Fred Wilmot instantly approach her, but from what point she scarcely knew. He was attired in plain clothes, for travelling evidently, but he was bareheaded, and she could see that his face looked most startlingly pale, that also pain and bewilderment were in it, and that he scarcely seemed to see her. Something in his looks and manner rooted Clare to the spot.
"Fred—Fred—Wilmot!" she cried, in a low voice, but, without stopping, he gave her one sad glance expressive of pity and love, sorrow and pain, and passing on towards the tomb, left her alone—alone and bewildered, while a new sense of great fear that she could not analyse, caused her to rush towards the house she had so lately quitted.
At the door she met her husband, full of excitement and agitation.
"You abroad, Clare," he exclaimed, with grave surprise; "have you then heard what has happened—ah, your white face tells me that you have?"
"What has happened, Cecil?" she asked, in a low, breathless voice.
"Poor Wilmot—God forgive me if I have wronged him!—has just been murdered and robbed by his native servant, a Patan scoundrel named Aloodeen."
"Murdered?"
"Yes—-just as the sunset gun was fired."
In a swoon Clare fell at his feet like one who was dead.
He had been stabbed to the heart! Who, or what was it in his likeness that Clare had seen at the place they were to meet? She was saved from her great temptation—saved to remain a sorrowing and innocent wife. She never again saw the face of Wilmot, even in a dream, though often in the years to come she decked his lonely grave with flowers.