Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Five.
A Voice out of the Past.
“Safe.”
Only one little word of four letters, and yet to Lilian Strange it seems just all the difference between death and life; and the great spidery characters in which that one little word is scribbled across the slip of red-brown paper which she holds in her trembling hand, are fairer in her eyes than the most tasteful of gold-engrossed illumination. At times, during the last few days, she has marvelled at the bare possibility of existence under the circumstances; and now, this morning, as she gazes upon the contents of the telegram which has just been handed to her, and which she has hardly had strength enough to open, so awful the apprehension of what it might disclose—the relief is almost too great.
“Safe.”
Only one word, but it is from himself; his own hand penned that message, which in its brevity is worth to her a column of detail at second hand. The colour comes and goes in her ashy face, and she sinks into a chair, faint and giddy beneath the shock. He is safe, and she will see him again. But then flashes in the thought of that other barrier—Truscott and his fatal knowledge. Was it not in this man’s power to part them again? Ah, surely not. Whatever dreadful mystery there is, she feels sure somehow that it will be cleared up. She will see him again—her one heart’s love—whom she sent forth to a cruel death. She will explain all, and he will forgive her—though it is the second time she has driven him from her—yes, she knows that, even if that last hurried note, which he had sent back to her on the eve of his awful peril, and which is now all blurred from the tears which have rained upon it—that last precious relic—had not been what it was.
And Annie Payne, entering at this moment—having the while been at the back of the house, where she could neither see nor hear the telegraph boy—started and stared in amazement, for Lilian broke into a radiant smile as she held out the despatch, and then burst into a flood of happy, grateful tears.
“There, Lilian darling. Didn’t I tell you while there was life there was hope? And now you’ll see that everything will come right,” said her warm-hearted friend, going over to kiss her. And then out of sheer sympathy, she began to cry, too.
“Please, missis,” said the Hottentot servant-girl, bursting into the room in great trepidation, “there’s a lady at the gate who’s very ill. She seems hardly able to stand.”
“Goodness gracious!” cried kind-hearted Annie Payne. “Who can she be? We must get her in—Come, Lilian!”