From the clustered and ivy-clad chimneys no smoke ascended against the grey November sky. Every window was shuttered and closed. There was an absence of all stir—an oppressive silence everywhere in and around the house—even from the little court where the clucking of Alison's hens was wont to be heard. A spade yet remained stuck in a plot of the garden, as if old silver-haired Archie Auchindoir had suddenly quitted his work there and returned no more.
Either by the result of mischief, or recent neglect, a large mass of the ivy and clematis that overhung the pretty little oaken porch had fallen down, and, if further evidence of total desertion were necessary, a large white ticket on a pole announced in black letters that the 'commodious villa of Chilcote was to let, furnished or unfurnished. Communications to be made in writing to Mr. Solomon Slagg, St. Clement's Lane, City.'
On taking in all these details of a sudden, hasty, and perhaps disastrous departure, the heart of Bevil seemed to stand still for some seconds.
Where had the little household gone, and why? And why did not Alison write to him of her movements? though he could not have replied without compromising her. Was Sir Ranald dead? Was she? Oh, no! no! He must have heard it—friends in camp must have heard through the public prints of any catastrophe.
She was gone—carried off; he could not doubt it—but whither and to what end he could not even surmise; his bower of roses—his fool's paradise, was levelled in the dust at last, and he could but linger, and look hopelessly and questioningly at the ticket of Mr. Solomon Slagg, and at the darkened windows through which Alison must often have looked, perhaps watching for his own approach.
He wrote to Mr. Slagg for information and Sir Ranald's address, but received no answer (doubtless Mr. Slagg was acting under the orders of Lord Cadbury), save printed circulars, from which it appeared that Mr. Slagg was ready to advance 'money confidentially to young officers and others on easy terms, borrowers' own security, repayments at convenience, &c., &c.'
It was terrible for Bevil Goring to surrender those hopes he had been cherishing in the depths of his heart—hopes that, though of recent growth, were strong, and dear, and precious, and the realisation of which had become his daily prayer.
A darkness as sudden seemed to have fallen upon him!
He remembered now all the poor girl's painful forebodings on that last eventful night that something was about to happen—the surely absurd story about the spectre dog, which he had so affectionately derided; but now 'something' certainly had come to pass! And what was it?