The sight of the Madam thus stricken and speechless sobered Mag out of her own fears. She bethought herself suddenly of the letter Jacqueline had left for her mother.
"Here! Maybe it says in the letter where she's gone at. Don't look that way, Miss Kate! I wa'n't to give you the letter till mornin', but here it is. You kin have it now, see, Miss Kate!"
Only a few sentences of the long, incoherent screed in her hand penetrated to Kate's brain.
I can't bear to leave you, I just can't bear it; but I love him so, Mummy!—He needs me, and you don't. He can't finish his book without me.—We're going abroad, and I'll study my singing while he writes. Some day you'll be proud of your little girl—You said when the time came to take my life in my two hands, and it's come. You know it is not his fault that we can't be married right away—but what does all that matter? You'll be the first to understand, because I'm doing just what you would have done for Philip's father, if it hadn't been for us children. I know! I understand you so well, darling Mummy. I'm your own child.—We're not niggardly lovers, you and I! We're not afraid to give all we have—
Kate uttered a hoarse exclamation, and dropped the letter. Her moment of helplessness had passed. She ran down stairs, two steps at a time, Mag at her heels. She jerked open the side door, and was almost driven from her feet by a great gust of driving rain. It was Mag who wrapped around her the first cloak that came to hand, the big, hooded cape Jacqueline had worn the night before, Kate stopped for nothing except to seize the rawhide whip which hung on its accustomed nail beside the door.
"What you goin' to do with that?" gasped Mag.
"My pistols are upstairs," muttered the other.
Mag stood at the door as long as she could, catching glimpses as the lightning flashed of a shrouded, hooded figure running with the wind, fast, fast, like some wild witch abroad upon the elements.