Norston's Rest

by Ann S. Stephens

She came down-stairs hurriedly, and rushed through the little parlor, as if afraid that the very walls might cry out against the act she meditated.

Ruth avoided the great avenues and the lodge-gate, but hurried by the most remote paths, through the deepest shades of the park, until one brought her to a side-gate in the wall, which she opened with a key, and let herself out into the highway. There she stood, for some minutes, with her hand on the latch, hesitating, in this supreme moment of her life, as if she stood upon a precipice, and, looking into its depths, recoiled with shuddering.

It is possible that the girl might have returned even then, for a pang of dread had seized upon her; but, while she stood hesitating, a noise in the highway made her leap back from the gate with a force that closed it against her, and she stood outside, trembling from head to foot; for, coming down the highway in a cloud of dust, she saw a dog-cart, in which was Walton Hurst and a groom, driving rapidly, as if in haste to meet some train. The young man gave her one encouraging glance as he swept by; the next moment the dog-cart had turned a curve of the road, and was out of sight.

Ruth felt now that her last chance of retreat was cut off. With a feeling of something like desperation she left the gate, and walked swiftly up the road. There was no sense of fatigue in this young girl. In her wild excitement, she could have walked miles on miles without being conscious of the distance. She did, in fact, walk on and on, keeping well out of sight, till she came to a little depot, some three miles from "Norston's Rest." There she diverged from her path, and, entering the building, sat down in a remote corner, and waited, with a feeling of nervous dread, that made her start and quiver as each person entered the room.

At last the train came up, creating some bustle and confusion, though only a few passengers were in waiting. Under cover of this excitement, Ruth took her seat in a carriage, and was shut in with a click of the latch which struck upon the poor girl's heart, as if some fatal turn of a key had locked her in with an irretrievable fate.

The train rushed on with a swiftness and force that almost took away the girl's breath. It seemed to her as if she had been caught up and hurled forward to her destiny with a force no human will could resist. Then she grew desperate. The rush of the engine seemed too slow for the wild desire that succeeded to her irresolution. Yet it was not twenty minutes before the train stopped again, and, looking through the window, Ruth saw her lover leap from the platform and enter the next carriage to her own.

Had he seen her? Did the lightning glance cast that way give him a glimpse of her face looking so eagerly through the glass? At any rate, he was in the same train with her, and once more they were hurled forward at lightning speed, until sixty miles lay between them and the mansion they had left.

Once more the train stopped. This time a hand whiter than that of the guard, was reached through the door, and a face that made her heart leap with a panic of joy and fear, looked into hers. She scarcely touched this proffered hand, but flitted out to the platform, like a bird let loose in a strange place. This was a way-side station, and it happened that no person except those two left the train at this particular point. Still they parted like chance passengers, and there was no one to observe the few rapid words that passed between them in the small reception-room.

When the train was out of sight, and all the bustle attendant on its arrival had sunk into silence, these two young persons entered a carriage that stood waiting, and drove swiftly toward a small town, clouded with the smoke of factories, that lay in the distance. Through the streets of this town, and into another, still more remote, they drove, and at last drew up in a small village, to which the spire of a single church gave something of picturesque dignity.

To the door of this church the carriage went, after avoiding the inhabitable portion of the village by taking a cross-road, which led through a neighboring moor. Into the low-browed entrance Walton Hurst led the girl. The church was dim, and so damp that it struck a chill through the young creature as she approached the altar, where a man, in sacred vestments, stood with an open book in his hand, prepared for a solemn ceremony.