"They must not find me," she thought. "Sir Noel did not think of this when he bade me seek shelter here. I will go! I will go!"
CHAPTER XXII.
WAS IT LIFE OR DEATH?
JUST as the lights crept up to the front paling, and began to cast a glow on the flowers inside, Lady Rose stole out from the porch, threaded a lilac thicket, which lay near a back gate, and let herself into a portion of the park which was strange to her. For a while she stood bewildered, not knowing the direction she ought to take. Then a flash of distant lights, shooting through the trees, revealed the position in which "The Rest" lay from the cottage; and taking the very path Ruth had sought in the morning, she hurried along it, so sheltered by the overhanging trees, that she might have passed unobserved, but for the flutter of her garments, and the glint of her jewels, as the moonbeam struck them now and then, in her progress.
"Does he breathe yet? Will the motion put out that one spark of life, before he reaches home? Shall I never see him again?"
The thought gave a wild, abnormal strength to the girl. She no longer felt fatigue. The faint dread at her heart was swept away with a more powerful force of suffering. She must know for herself.
Swiftly as these thoughts swept through her brain, they scarcely matched the speed of her movements. Gathering up the long skirts that encumbered her feet, she fairly flew along the path, panting with impatience rather than fear, as each step brought her closer to those lighted windows. All at once she sprang aside with a sharp cry, and turned, like an animal at bay, for, in a dark hollow, into which the path dipped, the figure of a man stopped her.
The shriek that broke from Lady Rose seemed to exasperate the black shadow, which had a man's form, that moved heavily. This was all the frightened girl could see; but, in an instant, a low, hoarse voice broke from it, and her hand was seized with a fierce grasp.
"So you have found it out. So much the better. Both down, and one answerable for the other. Famous end to a day's sweethearting, isn't it?"