In vain the wondering maid of Lady Legrange ventured to expostulate with her mistress, pointed to the cloudy sky and the fast descending snow. No earthly persuasion could stay the wife, not even the anxieties of the daughter. These anxieties, indeed, had been in a certain measure relieved; Mrs. Vernon had awoke calm and refreshed, and had dictated to Lyddie a message of affection to be sent to her Flora, little dreaming that at that moment the same roof covered them both.
Flora, accompanied only by her maid, set out on her gloomy journey. The violence of the wind was so great, that umbrellas were left behind as useless, while the falling snow so obscured the view, that the travellers could see but a few yards before them. To Flora, however, the path was so well known that she could have found her way blindfold. The fields were one white level, save where, beside the glistening hedges, the wind had drifted the snow into heaps. Flora's feet sank into the white mass at each step, she toiled with difficulty along the path; yet urged on by love and fear, she paused not for a moment even to take breath, or to shake the snowflakes from her mantle. She thought not of weariness, she thought not of suffering;--her whole soul was wrapped up in her husband. Surely the road had lengthened since she last trod it--would she never arrive at the place of her destination!
At length--at length the station is in sight, the little red-brick building, standing alone where the telegraph posts, with their straight black wires, stand in sharp defined outline against the white back-ground. Ha! there is a sound! Flora starts with an exclamation of distress--it is the shrill scream of the railway whistle--a long black object is rolling away into the distance, swift and swifter! Flora gazes after it with straining eyes, then sinks exhausted on a snow-heap beside the road; no need to hasten on now--she has missed the train--she too late!
Slowly and sadly, conscious now of utter weariness and exhaustion, Flora made her way to the station. "When may the next train be expected?" was her eager question when she arrived there.
"The next? about three hours hence."
How sank Flora's heart at the reply! Those hours might have been spent beside her mother might be so still; but no, fainting nature refused the effort; not the smallest hazard must be run of missing the next--the latest train. Flora warmed her shivering frame at the fire in the one bare little waiting-room at the station, then seated herself by the small table, and leaning her arms upon it, bowed down upon them her drooping head. She remained so long in this position that her maid believed that she slept. Then Flora arose, and paced up and down like a caged leopard, looked at her watch again and again, and gazed impatiently out on the snow. The railway man was whistling an air; it struck painfully on the lady's ear; in her utter misery it seemed strange to Flora that any human being could be happy.
An express train rushed past with a roar like thunder, awakening for a moment a hope which vanished like itself into darkness. Flora sat long with her eyes fixed on the telegraph-paper, as though she could draw from the lines, which she knew by heart, the information which their brevity denied. Alas! her fears supplied its place too well.
The three hours passed--Time does move on, even when his wings are of lead--but still no sight of the longed-for train.
"It is late," said the railway official; "doubtless its progress has been delayed by the snow."
Flora could sit still no longer; she was in a fever of restless expectation, and sorely her patience was tried. The train was long behind time; night closed in before at length the welcome bell of preparation was heard. Lady Legrange felt something almost resembling joy when she found herself seated at last in the train with her maid. A gentleman, whose features she could scarcely distinguish in the gloom, was their only fellow-traveller in the carriage. He made some common-place observation on the weather, which Flora neither comprehended nor answered. Her thoughts were becoming a wild chaos: she could not collect them sufficiently even for prayer.