For a few moments they overpowered her. In a dark phalanx rose before her mind tales of sorrow and wrong; pallid faces passed her by, tones of bitter misery rang in her ears. She covered her face with her hands. "They are the many," she cried, "the great multitude! Why should any think to be happy? God help us! for this is a dreary world." The words were spoken half aloud, for in the momentary despair she had forgotten everything but this—the aching of her own heart, the sadness of a hope-forsaken world.
She was aroused by a slight rustling among the leaves outside.
The house was very solitary, and the lonely women had more than once experienced that nervous terror which shudders at a sound and sees an intruder in every shadow. However, they kept nothing of great value in the house, and they had hitherto had no real cause for uneasiness. But Adèle in all her night-terrors had never heard anything so meaning as this stealthy rustling among the branches. She leaped to her feet and peered out into the night. This time she had not been deceived. At the gate there was a vision of fluttering garments. Adèle thought she recognized the form that was passing out into the night. With blanched face and trembling limbs she flew, rather than ran, across the room. It was almost too dark to see, but feeling on hands and knees the young girl discovered, to her horror, that the sofa was empty. Those fluttering garments were Margaret's. An access of fever had come on. In its delirium she had rushed out to meet certain death in the cold and desolate night.
For a moment Adèle was almost paralyzed by this new misfortune—fruit, as she told herself bitterly, of her own carelessness; then gathering her wits rapidly together, she threw a shawl round her head and rushed out in pursuit of the fugitive. She did not even wait to let the landlady and the old nurse know of their patient's flight. Time was the great consideration. Margaret might be stopped and brought back before any serious mischief should have happened.
And thus it came about that the two elder women, who were in the lower part of the house enjoying a cup of tea and a chat, in the pleasant relaxation of that anxiety which had been oppressing them all, knew nothing whatever of the strange commotion, of the mysterious flight of the two younger, for whose safety either of them would have staked her life.
The little parlor was deserted, the red fire flickered and waned, the door of the house stood open, through the dark hall the wind whistled and shrieked; while all the time, outside in the darkness, by the shores of the moaning sea, life and death, reason and madness, love and folly were carrying on their fierce, impatient strife.
Had Adèle waited for one more moment, she might have been startled by another sound. Scarcely had she left the little house, wild with anxiety, to discover and bring back her friend, before there came from the direction opposite to that she had taken the sound of horses' hoofs that echoed through the silent night.
For this was what had been happening in the mean time. A carriage had been driving as rapidly as a very poor horse could take it in the direction of the cottage. Inside it were a young man and a child, neither of whom spoke a word for the intensity of their outlook into the night.
A horseman rode beside them, and at times it seemed as if his impatience could scarcely be restrained, as if it were impossible for him to suit himself to the slow movement of the carriage.