‘To-day?’ asked Miss Laury in an accent of surprise.
‘Yes, madam.’
She mused a moment, then said quickly: ‘Very well, sir.’
Mr. O’Neill now took his leave.
For a long time after the door had closed Miss Laury sat, with her head on her hand, lost in a tumultuous flush of ideas and anticipations awakened by that simple sentence: ‘The duke will be here to-day.’
The striking of a timepiece aroused her. She remembered that twenty tasks awaited her direction. Always active, always employed, it was not her custom to waste many hours in dreaming. She rose, closed her desk, and left the quiet library for busier scenes.
Four o’clock came, and Miss Laury’s foot was heard on the staircase descending from her chamber. She crossed the large light passage—an apparition of feminine elegance and beauty. The robe of black satin became at once the slender form, which it enveloped in full and shining folds, and her bright blooming complexion, which it set off by the contrast of colour. Glittering through her curls there was a band of fine diamonds, and drops of the same pure gems trembled from her small ears. These ornaments, so regal in their nature, had been the gift of royalty, and were worn now chiefly for the associations of soft and happy moments which their gleam might be supposed to convey. She entered the drawing-room and stood by the window. From thence appeared one glimpse of the highroad visible through the thickening shades of Rivaulx. Even that was now almost concealed by the frozen mist in which the approach of twilight was wrapped. All was very quiet both in the house and in the wood. A carriage drew near; she heard the sound. She saw it shoot through the fog; but it was not Zamorna. No; the driving was neither the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, nor that of Jehu’s postillions. She had not gazed a minute before her experienced eye discerned that there was something wrong with the horses.’ The harness had got entangled or they were frightened. The coachman had lost control over them: they were plunging violently. She rang the bell. A servant entered. She ordered immediate assistance to be despatched to the carriage on the road. Two grooms presently hurried down the drive to execute her commands, but before they could reach the spot one of the horses, in its gambols, had slipped on the icy road and fallen. The others grew more unmanageable, and presently the carriage lay overturned on the roadside. One of Miss Laury’s messengers came back. She threw up the window that she might communicate with him more readily.
‘Any accident?’ she asked; ‘anybody hurt?’
‘I hope not much, madam.’
‘Who is in the carriage?’