“Yes, yes: you must go. I cannot stand it. I must think this thing out, undisturbed. It is a very great crisis.”
That afternoon and evening, by some unhappy chance, I was fully engaged in work at the hospital. Late at night a letter arrived for me. I glanced at it in dismay. It bore the Basingstoke postmark. But, to my alarm and surprise, it was in Hilda's hand. What could this change portend? I opened it, all tremulous.
“DEAR HUBERT,—” I gave a sigh of relief. It was no longer “Dear Dr. Cumberledge” now, but “Hubert.” That was something gained, at any rate. I read on with a beating heart. What had Hilda to say to me?
“DEAR HUBERT,—By the time this reaches you, I shall be far away, irrevocably far, from London. With deep regret, with fierce searchings of spirit, I have come to the conclusion that, for the Purpose I have in view, it would be better for me at once to leave Nathaniel's. Where I go, or what I mean to do, I do not wish to tell you. Of your charity, I pray, refrain from asking me. I am aware that your kindness and generosity deserve better recognition. But, like Sebastian himself, I am the slave of my Purpose. I have lived for it all these years, and it is still very dear to me. To tell you my plans would interfere with that end. Do not, therefore, suppose I am insensible to your goodness.... Dear Hubert, spare me—I dare not say more, lest I say too much. I dare not trust myself. But one thing I MUST say. I am flying from YOU quite as much as from Sebastian. Flying from my own heart, quite as much as from my enemy. Some day, perhaps, if I accomplish my object, I may tell you all. Meanwhile, I can only beg of you of your kindness to trust me. We shall not meet again, I fear, for years. But I shall never forget you—you, the kind counsellor, who have half turned me aside from my life's Purpose. One word more, and I should falter.—In very great haste, and amid much disturbance, yours ever affectionately and gratefully,
“HILDA.”
It was a hurried scrawl in pencil, as if written in a train. I felt utterly dejected. Was Hilda, then, leaving England?
Rousing myself after some minutes, I went straight to Sebastian's rooms, and told him in brief terms that Nurse Wade had disappeared at a moment's notice, and had sent a note to tell me so.
He looked up from his work, and scanned me hard, as was his wont. “That is well,” he said at last, his eyes glowing deep; “she was getting too great a hold on you, that young woman!”
“She retains that hold upon me, sir,” I answered curtly.
“You are making a grave mistake in life, my dear Cumberledge,” he went on, in his old genial tone, which I had almost forgotten. “Before you go further, and entangle yourself more deeply, I think it is only right that I should undeceive you as to this girl's true position. She is passing under a false name, and she comes of a tainted stock.... Nurse Wade, as she chooses to call herself, is a daughter of the notorious murderer, Yorke-Bannerman.”