CHAPTER IX.
ESCAPED.
Doctor Danton’s carriage dashed away like mad, and the man on the box smiled grimly to himself as he guided the spirited horses onward down the long, white country road which led to an adjacent town.
“A bold stroke, and a sure one,” Gilbert Warrington muttered. “If ever the devil helped his own, he has extended the right hand of fellowship to me to-night. She is safe in my care now, and I imagine that I can find a way to make her hold her tongue. Otherwise, she will tell her pathetic, her strangely romantic story to the nearest magistrate, and my game will be up. As long as I can keep her out of the way, keep her safely concealed from the eyes of the world, I shall have everything in my own hands. She will keep silent—she will have to—and I shall control the fortune. With only that girl to manage, there will be little trouble, I think. If I could have had my own way with Rosamond”—he went on thoughtfully, after a brief pause, during which he turned the horses’ heads into a new road, and applied the whip-lash lightly to their backs as he did so—“I would have made her my wife, and then all would have gone finely. But she hates me so—the little spitfire—that she could not endure my presence. Not that I mind her hatred so much, either; but it would have been sauce piquante to me; but I could not gain her consent. Neither persuasion, threats, nor intimidation had any effect upon her; she was firm, and not afraid of me. Because she was in her own house, surrounded by friends (old Danton would give his eyes for her); it will be quite different now, with her in my absolute power. Ah! my dear, you will live to regret the hour when you scorned Gil Warrington.”
On went the carriage as though pursued by demons—on, on! Rosamond Arleigh, nestling among the cushions inside, began to think that it was time that Yorke Towers was reached. Opening the carriage door softly, she called aloud:
“Driver!”
The carriage did not halt; its speed was unchecked. Once more she called loudly in accents of terror, a strange horror beginning to tug at her heart-strings.
“Driver! Stop! Stop a moment!”
There was danger that the sound of her voice in its wild appeal might reach the ears of a chance passer, although at this hour, in this lonely country place, there was little danger. But still she might contrive to make herself heard by somebody. The very thought drove the life-blood from about Gilbert Warrington’s craven heart.
In a pretty clump of woodland he halted the carriage. Making up his mind that now was the time to reveal himself to his prisoner, he got down from the box and approached the carriage door. Rosamond had unfastened it and sat clutching the handle desperately, with a suddenly aroused instinct of terror. She had felt so safe with Tom, the old negro coachman, whom she knew would drive her over to Yorke Towers, or any other place that she might request; though, of course, Tom never dreamed that the lady in the carriage was the supposed dead woman, the preparations for whose funeral were going on at The Oaks. Had such a suspicion intruded upon his mind, he would not have held the reins a moment in the service of a ghost, or a “h’ant,” as the negroes call it. But Tom had only observed that it was a woman, and she had requested him to drive her to Yorke Towers. It must be Miss Glyndon, or some friend of the Arleighs. Of course, he did not hesitate, therefore, to obey her orders. But there followed the attack upon him, and being totally unprepared for such a calamity, Tom was, of course, perfectly useless. And all this time Rosamond, crouching within the carriage, eager and anxious to reach Yorke Towers, and stand face to face with Helen Yorke, to demand an explanation of a certain mystery, never dreamed that Tom was not upon the box of the carriage. Had she known the truth before, it would have driven her mad. Her poor brain was even now trembling in the balance between reason and insanity. It would not take much of a blow to quite deprive her of reason.
As Gilbert Warrington opened the carriage door, Rosamond started up, pale and eager.
“Tom, this is not the road to Yorke Towers!” she exclaimed, wildly. “What do you mean? I will report you to Doctor Danton. Drive me to Yorke Towers at once. This is the road to Belleville. How dare you disobey my orders in this way? I—— Oh, my God! my God!”
For a gleam of the dying moonlight falling athwart the man’s face revealed the truth—and Gilbert Warrington.
He smiled, and his white teeth had a wolfish gleam as they glittered in the pallid moon rays.
“Well, my dear, you see how useless it is to hope to escape me,” he cried. “Even death itself has no power to separate us.”
But still she sat staring into his hated face with eyes full of horror and detestation.
“Heaven help me!” she moaned under her breath.
He laughed a hard, sneering laugh.
“Heaven will not help you,” he cried; “there is no help for you. Back, Rosamond Arleigh!” for she had sprung lightly forward, as though to leap from the carriage. “Back, I say, or I will have your life!”
With a swift movement he pushed her back into the vehicle, closed its door, and sprung upon the box. A moment later they were flying onward through the dusky shadows—the dark hour which comes just before day. It was a dark hour to poor Rosamond Arleigh. She crouched down once more among the cushions and gave herself up to bitter reflections. Surely Heaven had turned a deaf ear upon her, and would not hear or heed her prayers. She was lost—lost! An awful horror seized her. What would become of her? Where would he take her? What would be her fate? She closed her eyes as a deadly faintness stole over her and weakened her heart and paralyzed her brain. Lost, lost! No hope for her now. Heaven had forsaken her; she was in Gilbert Warrington’s power. A dull apathy began to steal over her and deprive her of reason. But the thought of her innocent child left to the machinations of this villain aroused her, and in a moment her mind was made up.
“I will make one bold stroke for freedom, though I perish in the attempt,” she said, resolutely.
The carriage was going at a furious pace. Close by was a deep, dark stream brawling onward amid fallen trees and débris, between high, steep banks. Rosamond remembered it, and knew that they were obliged to slacken pace to cross the narrow bridge which spanned the stream further on. They reached the bridge. She opened the carriage door softly, and made a swift, mad leap out and downward. As she touched the steep bank of the stream, the soft, sandy earth crumbled and gave way. Down she went—down to the swift, swirling flood below, followed by a shower of dislodged earth and stones! Down, down! And the carriage crossed the bridge and dashed on.