CHAPTER VII. — A PARLEY WITH THE JAILERS.
Coming as it did close upon her baffled efforts to escape, this discovery of Hugo proclaimed to Edith at once most unmistakably the fact that she was a prisoner. She was walled in. She was under guard and under surveillance. She could not escape without the consent of Wiggins, nor could she move about without being tracked by the spy of Wiggins. It was evident also that both the porter and the black servant Hugo were devoted to their master, and were beyond the reach both of persuasion and of bribery.
The discovery for a moment almost overwhelmed her once more; but the presence of another forced her to put a restraint upon her feelings. She tried to look unconcerned, and turning away her eyes, she sat in the same position for some time longer. But beneath the calm which her pride forced her to assume her heart throbbed painfully, and her thoughts dwelt with something almost like despair upon her present situation.
But Edith had a strong and resolute soul in spite of her slender and fragile frame; she had also an elastic disposition, which rose up swiftly from any prostration, and refused to be cast down utterly. So now this strength of her nature asserted itself; and triumphing over her momentary weakness, she resolved to go at once and see Wiggins himself. With these subordinates she had nothing to do. Her business was with Wiggins, and with Wiggins alone.
Yet the thought of an interview had something in it which was strangely repugnant to Edith. The aspect of her two jailers seemed to her to be repellent in the extreme. That white old man, with the solemn mystery of his eyes, that weird old woman, with her keen, vigilant outlook—these were the ones who now held her in restraint, and with these she had to come in conflict. In both of them there seemed something uncanny, and Edith could not help feeling that in the lives of both of these there was some mystery that passed her comprehension.
Still, uncanny or not, whatever might be the mystery of her jailers, they remained her jailers and nothing less. It was against this thought that the proud soul of Edith chafed and fretted. It was a thought which was intolerable. It roused her to the intensest indignation. She was the lady of Dalton Hall; these who thus dared to restrain her were her subordinates. This Wiggins was not only her inferior, but he had been the enemy of her life. Could she submit to fresh indignities or wrongs at the hands of one who had already done so much evil to her and hers? She could not.
That white old man with his mystery, his awful eyes, his venerable face, his unfathomable expression, and the weird old woman, his associate, with her indescribable look and her air of watchfulness, were both partners in this crime of unlawful imprisonment. They dared to put restrictions upon the movements of their mistress, the lady of Dalton Hall. Such an attempt could only be the sign of a desperate mind, and the villainy of their plan was of itself enough to sink them deep in Edith's thoughts down to an abyss of contempt and indignation. This indignation roused her, and her eagerness to see Miss Plympton impelled her to action. Animated by such feelings and motives, she delayed no longer, but at once returned to the Hall to see Wiggins himself.
On her way back she was conscious of the fact that Hugo was following; but she took no notice of it, as it was but the sequel to the preceding events of the day. She entered the Hall, and finding Mrs. Dunbar, told her to tell Wiggins that she wished to see him. After this she went down to the dreary drawing-room, where she awaited the coming of her jailer.