She started up—"Gone!—Whither?"
"To Twyford, my lady."
"Send after him, you idiot! Send the grooms after him on all my lord's horses. Send a lad on Haphazard, and let him race the train to London. Send the police! He has stolen my purse, with ten thousand gold guineas in it!—I swear he has. Have him bound hand and foot, and bring him back, on your life. If you stay there I will kill you!"
The violent old animal nature, dammed up so long by creeds and formulas, had broken out at last. The decorous Lady Ascot was transformed in one instant into a terrible, grey-headed, magnificent old Alecto, hurling her awful words abroad in a sharp, snarling voice, that made the hair of him that heard it to creep upon his head. The man fled, and shut Lady Ascot in alone.
She walked across the room, and beat her withered old hands against the wall. "Oh, miserable, wicked old woman!" she cried aloud. "How surely have your sins found you out! After concealing a crime for so many years, to find the judgment fall on such an innocent and beloved head! Alicia, Alicia, I did this for your sake. Charles, Charles, come back to the old woman before she dies, and tell her you forgive her."
CHAPTER XXXI.
LIEUTENANT HORNBY.
Charles had always been passionately fond of horses and of riding. He was a consummate horseman, and was so perfectly accomplished in everything relating to horses, that I really believe that in time he might actually have risen to the dizzy height of being stud-groom to a great gentleman or nobleman. He had been brought up in a great horse-riding house, and had actually gained so much experience, and had so much to say on matters of this kind, that once, at Oxford, a promising young nobleman cast, so to speak, an adverse opinion of Charles's into George Simmond's own face. Mr. Simmonds looked round on the offender mildly and compassionately, and said, "If any undergraduate could know, my lord, that undergraduate's name would be Ravenshoe of Paul's. But he is young, my lord; and, in consequence, ignorant." His lordship didn't say anything after that.
I have kept this fact in the background rather, hitherto, because it has not been of any very great consequence. It becomes of some consequence now, for the first time. I enlarged a little on Charles being a rowing man, because rowing and training had, for good or for evil, a certain effect on his character. (Whether for good or for evil, you must determine for yourselves.) And I now mention the fact of his being a consummate horseman, because a considerable part of the incidents which follow arise from the fact.