"Keep cool, Cole; you don't know what a viper we have harbored. I am only going to take her to a Mrs. Mansfield's, and, if she can speak so much truth, she will tell you she is a friend of hers," said Stone, vengefully.
"You are heaping coals of fire on the viper's head by taking her there, Timothy," said Miss Stone, wonderingly.
"Is this person a friend of yours, Sarah?" asked Cole, forlornly pressing both hands to his throbbing temples. "How cruel they are to send you from me. Do you know of a good physician, Sarah?"
"Oh, yes, sir; Dr. Annesley, of London; he——"
"Hold your prate, Sarah Kane, and mind your own business," cried Margaret, trembling with rage. "Get out of here," and with a smart push she is outside and the key turned.
For a few moments Sarah Kane stood irresolute, when the clock struck three.
"Yes, that will be best," she thought, "but I have no time to lose," and, quickly flying to her own apartment, she hurriedly packs up, but not the handsome wardrobe willed her by her late mistress, of which she knows not, but simply her own modest apparel; this she places in two trunks, weeping silently the while for the evil come upon the poor sick man in yonder east chamber, for her own forced desertion of him into the cruel hands of the inmates at Broadlawns, for her own undefined plans to find her young mistress, and endeavor to reinstate her in the fortune willed her, which she is in doubt now that the law will give her, as she has not married Charles B. Cole. She weeps on, as she thinks of the fearful fraud that has been committed; for here is Mr. Cole married! actually married to Miss Villiers, in Sarah Kane's estimation, the most wicked woman that lives, when he had been the intended husband of her sweet, gentle Miss Pearl.
"Woe, woe, that I did not go to Dr. Annesley, and tell him of the prolonged absence of Miss Pearl, instead of watching here, or to a lawyer; but I dreaded their fees, as they have paid me no salary for five years, nor can I claim it, as they told me if I staid I should get nothing. I have erred in judgment. God help me and that poor sick man. Yes, I must slip away and tell Silas. It is fortunate Mary is with him still, or they (if by some mischance they miss me) might again make occasion to malign me as to going to see a man; how easily those smooth-tongued hypocrites can take away one's character, and they doing the real harm all the while. My grey ulster and hat will not be too heavy; it is quite a cool morning, and being up all night, and supperless to bed, makes me feel chilly. How surprised Silas and his sister will be. I know he will want me to marry him at once, but I feel too old and grey; but, as he says, so I have told him for years; and he has waited and waited until the clouds at Broadlawns would lighten, and now they are blacker than ever. Kind Silas, good and true Silas, what will you say to this terrible marriage of poor Mr. Cole to awful Miss Villiers?"
And now her expeditious fingers having set her house in order, her grey hair rolled back from her brow, her small, regular features, sensitive mouth, and good blue eyes looking wan and anxious, locking her door, she slips down the back stairs, and out into the chill dulness of an October morning. In fifteen minutes she knocks at the house of Silas Jones, the front room of which he calls his shop, selling in a quiet way stationery and current literature. The city clocks are ringing the last quarter before four, and Mary is the first to hear the unusual sound on the knocker at that early hour. Waiting to hear it repeated, she lifts the window, when, at Sarah Kane's voice calling Silas, they both hasten down to open the door.
"Dear me, Sarah; what's up?" said Mary, kissing her. "What a scare you gave me!"