Nell did not stop to consider how bitterly unfair this would be to his young wife. She hated the very thought of Nora, and would have injured her in any possible way. Lord Ilfracombe was hers—hers alone—that was the way she argued—and his wife had robbed her of him, and must take the consequences, whatever they might be. Her love for him was so deep, so passionate, so overwhelming, he could not resist nor stand against it. Had she only refused to let him leave England, his marriage would never have taken place. It had been a cheat, a robbery, a fraud, and such things never thrive. If they only met—if she could only meet him—he and his wife would both have to acknowledge the truth of what she said.
Meanwhile, however, she could gain no news of the Earl of Ilfracombe, her own act of supposed suicide having put the possibility of hearing of him out of her reach. She could not come in contact with him again without her former position in his household being made known. For this reason, as long as she remained with her parents, Nell saw no chance of seeing him. And it was only at times that she desired it. At others, she felt as if the sight of her perfidious lover would kill her—as if she would run miles the other way sooner than encounter him; and these were the despairing moments, when she wept till she was nearly blind, and made her mother rather impatient, because she would not confess what ailed her, nor say what she wanted. The poor girl was passing through the gates of hell, through which most of us have to pass during our lifetime, in which whoever enters must leave Hope behind, for the portals are so dark and gloomy that Hope could not exist there. Some women will get over a disappointment like this in a reasonable time; some never get over it at all; and Nell Llewellyn was one of the latter. Her very soul had entered into her love for Lord Ilfracombe, and she could not disentangle it. It had not been an ordinary love with which she had regarded him, but an ardent worship—such worship as a devotee renders to the God of his religion. I do not say that such women never love again, but they never forget the first love, which is ready to revive at the first opportunity, and which lives with them all through the exercise of the second, glorifying it, as it were, by the halo thrown over it from the past.
Nell was still in a state of hopeless collapse. She had not got over the news of Ilfracombe’s marriage in the slightest degree. She was perfectly aware that he had shut the gates of Paradise between them for evermore; yet she often experienced this feverish anxiety to learn from his own lips in what light he regarded their separation.
Meanwhile her conscience occasionally accused her of not having behaved as kindly as she might to Hugh Owen—sometimes gave her a sickening qualm also, as she remembered she had parted with her cherished secret to a man who had apparently quarrelled with her ever since. He had assured her it was safe with him, but Nell felt that he despised her for the confession she had made, and might not his contempt lead him to forget his promise? She wanted further assurance that he would be faithful and true.
She went over to the Dale Farm far oftener than she had been wont to do (which Hetty accepted entirely as a compliment to her baby), in the hope of encountering him; but he always managed to slink away before she reached the house, or to have some excuse for leaving directly afterwards.
One afternoon, towards the end of May, however, as she distinctly saw him hurrying off through the fields at the back, with a book in his hand, Nell waited till he was well out of sight, and then, altering her course, turned also and followed him up.
CHAPTER VI.
The country was in its full spring-tide beauty. The hedges were gay with shepherds’ purse and pimpernel, and merry with the song of birds rejoicing over their young. The green meadows were dotted over with the late lambs, skipping like the high hills of Scripture; and as Nell followed on Hugh Owen’s track, she trod the sweet woodruffe under her feet. A balmy, south-west wind blew on her heated face, as she ran over the grassy hill, up which he was slowly wending his way, with his eyes bent on his book. She had captured him at last. A long stretch of grass land lay between them yet, but there was no friendly copse or orchard on the way in which he could take shelter from her. Not that Hugh even knew of her approach. He had seen her coming up the gravelled walk that led to the Dale Farm, and slipped out as usual by the back-door, in order to avoid her. After her last words to him, he thought his presence must be as objectionable to Nell as hers was distressing to him. That she should take the trouble to follow him never entered his head; so he went on slowly, poring over his book, and was more startled than she could imagine when he heard a voice calling gaspingly after him,—‘Hugh! Hugh!’ He turned round then, to meet Nell’s beautiful face, flushed with exertion, as she panted to come up with him.
‘Stop, Hugh! Stop a minute! I want to speak to you,’ she said breathlessly.
He halted at her appeal, but he did not smile as she reached his side.