Freda staggered away out of the building. She was now only capable of one sensation—a longing to escape so strong, so fixed, that it became at once a resolution. She stole past the stables, a long line of stone buildings, with remnants of monastic character in blocked up Gothic doorways and disused niches. No one had passed that way this morning, for the night’s snow was untrodden. From the other extremity of the line of stables, however, there were footprints in the snow going backwards and forwards through the stone entrance to the open space in front of the banqueting-hall. From this entrance the gates had been torn down, so that the one barrier between Freda and liberty was now the outer gates at the lodge.
She had nothing to fear from the blind eyes of the blocked-up windows in the roofless hall. So she went across the enclosure to the lodge, and tried the iron gates. They were fastened. She did not dare to summon the woman in charge to open for her: hatless as she was, she would never be allowed to pass. This place, with its secret locks, its well-guarded exits, its high stone walls, was practically a prison at the will of its owners. Her only chance was to wait until the gates were opened for some one else to go in or out, and then to slip past and take her chance of being unnoticed. Of course this plan could not be tried until darkness set in; but it was such a gloomy day that dusk could not fail to be early. In the meantime she must find a hiding-place. There was no nook or corner in this great bare enclosure into which she could creep; she had to retrace her steps, forgetting the tell-tale print of her poor little feet in the snow, to the stable-yard, where she found an unlocked door. Entering a four-stall stable, which had evidently not been used for years except as a storage-place for lumber, she sat down on an empty packing-case, and prepared to wait.
She was so bitterly cold that she began to feel too benumbed to move or even to think. She tried to clap her hands together, but the movement caused her so much pain that she gave up this attempt, and remained in a crouching attitude with her arms folded. The incident of the morning faded from her mind, so that she soon almost forgot how she came there. Perhaps she was dreaming it all. Then she drew herself up with a start, remembering stories that she had heard of the danger of falling asleep in the cold. Danger! why danger? If she died there she would go to heaven, and meet the Mother-Superior and Sister Agnes and the rest some day, and perhaps God would forgive her father for the sake of her prayers. She could pray for him now, die praying for him, that was the best thing she could do. For now, although the mystery was not cleared, there seemed no doubt possible that he was the murderer of the man Blewitt.
So she fell on her knees, and, supporting herself against a pile of old hampers and mouldy straw, tried to pray. But she could not keep her mind from straying, and, with the words of supplication still on her lips, the thought would flit through her mind that it was to Barnabas Ugthorpe she must escape; or again, the figure of Dick Heritage would seem to appear before her eyes, with the good-humoured smile which had so won her heart. And then prayers and thoughts alike merged into a sensation of nameless horror, which she could neither understand nor fight against.
At this point, when she was on the verge of insensibility, there came a noise, a light, a touch. She was shaken by the shoulder, then lifted up bodily, and some one spoke to her in a voice which at first seemed to come from a long way off, and then suddenly, without any warning, sounded close to her ear.
“Wake up, child, wake up. Are you asleep?” Then it was that the change came, and the words almost stunned her like a loud cry: “Merciful God! She is not dead, not dead?”
Freda raised her head feebly.
“Is it you, Barnabas?” she said.
There was no answer, and the girl had time to collect her thoughts. Raising herself, she found she had been supported by the arms of Crispin Bean, who hung over her with a face of dumb solicitude. Struggling away from him, with what would have been a shriek if her vocal powers had been fully restored, she ran towards the door, but stumbled blindly. He ran after her and supported her against her will.
“Let me go, I entreat you let me go,” she pleaded hoarsely.