The fly drove to the door in a quarter of an hour: it was one o'clock.
"Drive quickly!" cried Minnie, as she stepped in and gave Mary's address; "I am late." The man touched his hat, and obeyed. There was a lane leading to the road from their house; at the corner of this a brougham appeared, coming towards the villa. "It is Dora!" exclaimed she to herself. "If I stop, she will delay me; moreover, she does not see all as I do; dear Dora is more coldly calculating, and lectures me for visiting poor Mary; I will not stop now, but write and tell her to-morrow; she will call again, and for worlds I would not forsake Mary in her trouble." As she thought all this, with one hand she hastily drew down the blinds, and leaned back in the carriage. She did not see Dora, neither did she see the occupant of another brougham, with the blinds half down, who was watching all, with a pale, anxious face.
"Follow that fly," he said, in a scarcely articulate voice, pointing after Minnie's—"not too closely, but keep it in sight——She did not even speak to her cousin," he whispered to his trembling heart, "but drew down the blinds to avoid observation!" And he pressed his hands over his strained and burning eyes.
CHAPTER V.
It was scarcely two when Minnie stopped at the door of Mary Burns's cottage; alighting, she rapped. The servant of whom Dalby made mention, opened the door. But, let us hasten to say, of all this he was ignorant; the game was too deep a one to be entrusted even to him.
"Is Miss Burns at home?" asked Minnie.
"No, ma'am; she has been out some time, but I expect her very shortly. Will you walk up-stairs, in the drawing-room?"
Minnie obeyed, desiring the fly to wait. Before going to this apartment, however, she entered the parlour, and there found Mary's old mother sitting, childish and insensible as ever to all around. She spoke a few words to the deaf ear, and looked her sympathy in the unconscious face; then turning, followed the servant up-stairs. Here she paced the room impatiently some moments; then, sitting down, looked in the fire to seek some associations for her thoughts in the "faces in the fire." She was in deep meditation; she felt nervous, and full of thought.
Thought! What are our thoughts? They are like dissolving views passing over the soul. One fades imperceptibly into another, brighter and totally different; then this one in its turn yields place to others, and so on, until at last the curtain falls over the last—and where are we? In an immensity of tangled imaginings, wide and spreading like eternity!