"Oh!" cried Blanche, wringing her hands, "they have accused him of crimes he never committed, and blasted his name, and broken his heart--and if--if--Henry Beauchamp"----
"Is not the lady coming?" cried a voice from below. "The ship's getting under weigh, ma'am. You'll be left behind if you don't mind."
"Indeed, Miss Blanche, you must come," cried Mrs. Williams, who had hitherto discreetly remained at the other end of the corridor, when she saw who it was detained her young mistress. "You must come, indeed!"
"I will--I will!" said Blanche, and, dropping her voice, she added--while for one moment she raised her beautiful eyes to Beauchamp's face, and the warm blood mounted again into her cheek--"Henry Beauchamp--my dear cousin--it is most likely the last time we shall ever meet--but if ever you loved me--if you would have poor Blanche Delaware bless and pray for you to her last hour--use your whole strength and mind to clear my poor brother's name and character--God bless you, God bless you!" and she ran on, down the stairs.
Beauchamp paused for a moment in utter bewilderment, then, darting into his room, seized his hat, and followed with all the speed he could employ. That, however, was but little. The harbour was not far, it is true; but ere he could reach the narrow pier, from which the passengers had been embarked, the ship bound to Cherbourg had shot out to sea, and with a strong and favourable wind, was making its way towards the coast of France.
Beauchamp gazed after her in vain; for nothing but the faint indistinct forms of the many people that crowded the deck, could now be discovered; and with feelings as bitter and painful as ever man felt, he turned away and went back to the inn.
CHAPTER IV.
On entering the sitting-room which had been appropriated to him, Beauchamp cast himself back in a chair, and, for a moment, reflected on the extraordinary interview he had just gone through. But a new discomfort now assailed him, and he felt a degree of confusion of thought, and even indistinctness of memory, that pained and alarmed him. Could the blow he had received on the head, he asked himself, the consequences of which he had entirely neglected--could it have injured his brain? Nevertheless, his personal feelings occupied him but for an instant, and were only permitted to cut across his thoughts of Blanche Delaware, and interrupt the ideas which his conversation with her had called up, when the dizzy mistiness of his brain prevented him from pursuing clearly any defined train of thinking.
Should he engage a boat, he asked himself, and follow Sir Sidney to Cherbourg, in search of farther explanations--perhaps, I might say, in search of farther hopes; for with all the confused and painful feelings that his brief interview with Blanche Delaware had excited; there had also been left behind a sweet consoling hope, that after all he was beloved, and that time might yet make her his own.
He paused upon that idea, which, like a gleam of sunshine upon the dark and struggling waters of the sea, gave one bright spot for the mind's eye to rest upon, in the midst of the doubts and anxieties that whirled around him. Should he follow her, he thought, and enquire what was meant by her allusion to her brother; or should he stay and do what he conceived to be his duty, in bringing to justice, as far as he could effect it, the men who had committed the crime at Ryebury. "I will see what has been already discovered," he said at length, "and then act as I find necessary."