Lottie went out of the room in great excitement, and left us astonished and very anxious. We talked the matter over without result. If the girl was determined to go, we had not a shadow of power to prevent it, and we could not yet make up our minds that she was absolutely wrong. There was something in the bottom of her heart that we were unable to fathom.
But we determined that night to make another attempt to detain the strange girl; if that proved impossible, to send a trusty person to protect her on her way to New York and bring back news of her safety. Somewhat consoled by these resolutions, we separated for the night. The next morning, when we sent for Lottie, the servants told us that she had been gone two hours, having ridden to town with the man who brought over the morning papers, before any one but the servants was astir. We sent over to the town immediately, and learned that she had left by a train that passed ten minutes after she reached the depot.
CHAPTER LXV.
LOTTIE LEAVES A LETTER AND A BOOK.
The departure of Lottie added to our trouble. We had learned to love the girl very much, and this wild work, in a creature so utterly unused to the world, distressed us greatly. Unconsciously even to ourselves, we had begun to rely upon Lottie as a friend, and bright, if not safe counsellor. Her untiring spirit amused us when nothing else could. Indeed, she was like an April day in the house, half storm, half sunshine, but interesting in any phase of her erratic life. It seemed as if half the light had left our house, when the man came back from the railroad and told us that she was absolutely gone. Jessie went off to her own room with tears in her eyes. I would have given the world to know where that strange young creature was going, and half my life could I have followed her.
Sadness is sure to seek shelter in shadowy places. Mine carried me into the chamber of my lost friend. It was dim and orderly, like a church closed after service. The white bed on which she died, gleamed upon me through the dim light like an altar. The blinds were closed, the sashes down; a funereal stillness had settled on everything she once loved to look upon. I sunk down upon my knees by the bed, weeping bitterly. Would that woman ever dare to stand in Mrs. Lee's room, its mistress? Had she ever yet been able to wipe the blood-stain from her own lips gathered from the heart she had broken by a Judas kiss?
Upon my knees in that room, I felt and knew that a murder, so crafty that the criminal herself could torture it into accident to her own conscience, had been perpetrated there. The voice of my dead friend seemed calling on me to avenge her, and save the man she had loved better than her own soul, from a thraldom worse than death. In my anguish I cried out, "What can I do? what can I do?"
Nothing answered me. I was alone, doubly alone, since that girl had left us. Never before had my helplessness been so complete. Perhaps I had indulged in some wild hope connected with Lottie, and that had been cut from under my feet by her desertion. If so, I was unconscious of it; but no lame man ever felt the loss of his staff, as I felt the cruel ingratitude of this girl. Still I had a vague trust in her, a hope changing and fantastic as the wind, but still a hope that she might not prove the thoughtless creature her conduct seemed to bespeak her.
One end of the room was less gloomy than the rest, and a bar of light cutting across it disturbed me. It came through the partially opened door of Lottie's little chamber, in which a blind had been left unclosed. I went into the room, and there, directly beneath the window, saw the girl's writing-desk, on which lay a letter and a blank-book, which I remembered to have given Lottie one day, when she had pressed me earnestly for something of the kind. The letter was placed ostentatiously on its edge, and I saw that it was addressed to me. I opened it with some trepidation and read:—