Chapter VI
ANOTHER VAIN JOURNEY
Elizabeth stood still, the lamp shaking in her hand. When at last she had taken the few steps between her and her bureau and had set down the lamp it seemed to her that she had accomplished a great feat.
They commanded her to bring back “the paper.” What paper? Was it the will she had written for the poor old woman? Herbert’s safety should not be jeopardized for that! It lay on the beam in her house. What had they done with Herbert? Had they carried him to some cave or den, or to some dreadful cabin like the one she had visited? Would they torture him, starve him?
Elizabeth quite lost her head. She looked again into the stable to convince herself that Joe was really not there. Then she started into the blackness of the wood road. As she went, she called, and the echo from the higher hill broken by the trees answered her faintly, “Herbert! Herbert!” Or was it a voice mocking her distress?
Before she had gone half a mile, she realized that nothing was to be gained by this procedure. She was not sure that she was still in the road; she had walked into trees, and long shoots of crow’s-foot, which grew only in the deeper woods, reached out and grasped her ankles. If she lost the road, she would have to spend the night in the woods and that would not profit Herbert. She must start back while she was still sure that she could extricate herself.
Once more she seemed to hear voices, and called. If Herbert were near, he would answer. But when she stopped and listened, she heard only the murmuring wind.
Again she grew terror-stricken and started to run. There was no unhappy situation in Herbert’s life from which she had not rescued him, whether it was from the small ills of childhood or the more serious troubles of his later days. She blamed herself now for having expected too much of him. He was still frail and she had required him to take the part of a strong man. For the past few weeks there had been not a coldness, but a silence between them. She should have told him the full extent of the hatred for their grandfather or she should not have left him alone.
Then she started to run. Now the road was comparatively smooth and she knew each turn. He must be at home. This was not the day of brigands! Surely she would find him watching for her, worried because she had not come!