Her sleeping apartment was over the lodgers’ rooms, and as she reached it she locked the door and flung herself on the bed, face downwards, in an agony of apprehension. What was going to happen next? she asked herself. What was to be the next scene in her life’s tragedy? Would her irate father force the truth from the earl, or would he guess it from his embarrassment? Would the story come to the ears of the countess, and make mischief between her husband and herself? There seemed to be no end to the horrors that might happen from her father having gained knowledge of the proximity of her former employer. And if he confided his doubts to Hugh Owen, or any of the Dale Farm party, might not he add his quota to the chapter of horrors by relating what he had witnessed in the field the night before?
Poor Nell could get no rest that night for thinking of these things, and wondering how she should come out of them all.
She rose after a while and bathed her burning and swollen eyelids in cold water, and took a seat by the open casement and out-gazed into the calm, peaceful night. The air was warm and balmy, but there were few stars, and the moon was in her first quarter.
How long she had sat there she did not know, till she heard the church clock chiming the hour of twelve, and thought to herself that it was time she lay down on her bed. But just as she was about to do so, her attention was arrested by the figure of a woman walking slowly and furtively over the grass beneath the window.
Nell did not know who she was, nor what she came for; but not unnaturally supposing that she would not be there at that time of night unless she needed the assistance of her mother or herself in some sudden emergency, she waited quietly until the stranger should knock or call out in order to summons her. To her surprise, however, the woman did not go round to the principal entrance to the farmhouse, but lingered about the grass-plat, walking backwards and forwards, and occasionally glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the Hall.
Nell’s curiosity was now fully aroused, but she made no sign to arrest the attention of the visitor. On the contrary, she drew further back from the window, so as to be entirely concealed by the dimity curtain that shaded it. From this vantage-ground she presently saw the woman joined by a man, who she at once recognised as Mr Portland. Nell’s first feeling was indignation that he should presume to make her mother’s house a place of assignation; but when he commenced to talk, she could only listen, spellbound.
CHAPTER V.
‘And so you have kept your word, my lady,’ he said nonchalantly.
‘Had you any doubt that I should do so?’ she answered.
‘It would not have been the first time if you had broken it,’ was the sarcastic rejoinder.