“Well,” she cried, suddenly opening the carriage-door, “here goes for a little more insanity! I’m tired of you already. By-by, dearest!”
On the last word, to Lord Carthew’s horror, she sprang from the open door of the now rapidly moving train, and was lost to sight almost immediately as the engine entered a tunnel.
To communicate with the guard was hopeless until the train had passed through, by which time, after a prolonged search, Lord Carthew realized that in this particular carriage the communicator was missing.
His nerves were stunned by the unexpectedness of the blow. That Stella was mad, he had now not the slightest doubt, but this conviction did not decrease his anxiety on her account. An overwhelming dread, too, of the scandal which her crazy conduct would cause, increased his mental disquiet. What if his unfortunate bride were crushed to pieces, or maimed for life by her terrible leap! It seemed impossible that she could escape some such fate, for he could not even say for certain that she had jumped clear of the tunnel. The train was an express from this point to Portsmouth, and every moment the speed was increasing. He tried thrusting his head through the window of the saloon, and endeavored to attract the guard’s attention; but the wind, driving through his hair, and seeming to cut his face as the express darted on, blew his cries in the other direction. All that he could do was to draw down the blinds of the saloon so that Lady Carthew’s disappearance should not be noted by curious passers-by when the train stopped, and to possess his soul with such patience as he might until Portsmouth was reached at last.
Arrived there, he summoned the guard and the station-master, pledged them to secrecy, and informed them of the disastrous accident by which his bride, leaning against an imperfectly closed door, had been precipitated on to the line, not far from Peterstone Station.
Instantly the telegraph wires were set at work, but no trace of the missing bride could be found at first, until a telegram, addressed to Lord Carthew, care of station-master, Portsmouth, and sent from Clapham Junction Station, was handed in to the distracted husband.
The message ran:
“Off to London. Stella Carthew.”
CHAPTER XIX.
FOUND!
It was three days after Lord Carthew’s wedding. Hilary Pritchard was lodging in an hotel off the Strand, and was sitting in the coffee-room at breakfast on a misty May morning.