‘Ay, doctor,’ said the woman, who knew him, though not Ada. ‘She was none fit to be walking on such roads at such times. I wanted her to bide a bit, and rest; but nay—she said she had far to go, and yon’s t’ road she took.’
Michael rode on, determined to find her, for Roger’s sake, for the sake of Eleanor, and out of his own pity for her condition. He was not long in coming within sight of the gray stone farm, and within a stone’s throw of it, the curve in the wall, and the figure that lay beneath it.
He muttered an inarticulate word, as he sprang from his horse, and stooped over her, and when he saw her face, recoiled for a moment. For a brief instant or two he could see nothing distinctly, a film was over his eyes, and a great sob in his throat, as he turned, and hung his horse’s bridle over the post of a gate in the wall He then stooped down, raised the lifeless figure in his arms, and carried her over the rough road to the farm door. The dogs, who were his friends, came out to welcome him, and then stopped, sniffing suspiciously at the skirts of the strange burden he bore. The farmer’s wife saw him, and ran forward, with upraised hands, ‘Lord ’a mercy, Dr. Langstroth—what is’t?’
‘Mrs. Nadin, you have promised many a time to do me a good turn; and I want a very good one doing now. Give a shelter to this poor thing till her trouble is over; it is a sad tale, and I’ll tell it you afterwards.’
Mrs. Nadin made no more ado. Langstroth had, according to her, saved her husband’s life two years ago, and with true north country love, she had been ever since burning to ‘pay him back again.’ She only stopped to look at the girl’s face, and to ejaculate Ada’s name. Then she called her daughter to her aid, and they whispered horror-struck conjectures to one another as they tended the wretched young woman.
And here, under the roof of these pitiful strangers, was that evening born, before his time, the son of Otho Askam—a child of sorrow, if ever one came into the world.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE BROTHERS
It was late in the evening of the same day. Eleanor and Michael were alone together in her drawing-room. She had not been left alone all day. Unable to bear the solitude and suspense alone, she had sent for Mrs. Parker, who, of course, knew all the story from Michael. The good lady had come, and remained with her during all the hours of waiting and terror. When Michael was announced, Eleanor had said she would like to see him alone, and Mrs. Parker had gone into another room. He had come in, looking both tired and haggard; for what had happened had struck him, both through his friend, and through the woman he loved. Though Roger had now no connection with Ada, Michael knew him too well to suppose for a moment that he had, or could have, ceased to love her, in the space of five short months. The worst agony of separation might be over, but he could imagine what this news would be to the man who had loved this unhappy girl so tenderly and so faithfully. As for Eleanor, her sufferings were his sufferings now. And thirdly, there was himself and his own sensations in the matter. He had never admired Ada, and had always been sorry that she had been Roger’s choice; but it had never entered into his head to dream of such a dénouement to the broad farce he had seen played at the concert. It was not that he had credited Otho with being any better than he was, but it had not occurred to him to look at such a side as being possible to the affair. If any one had suggested it to him, he would have said first, that Otho would not dare to commit such a sin where a girl of Ada’s upbringing was concerned, and next, that Ada herself was beyond suspicion. The whole thing had burst upon him, and he was filled with disgust and horror, such as a man whose mind and life have been alike clean, must feel when he comes face to face with such a history, and finds it intruding itself into the most intimate relations of his own life.
Summoning up his courage, he had told her all that had happened. She had at first been standing. As he proceeded, her face went paler; her limbs trembled. At the picture of how he had found Ada lying by the roadside, the tears rained from her eyes. And when he ceased to speak she was seated at the table, her head buried in her arms, as if she would fain have hidden her face from him and from all the world. Indeed, a cloud of great darkness hung over her soul, and it seemed for the moment as if neither religion nor hope, nor any good thing could stand in the presence of overwhelming, triumphant villainy like this. Michael was watching her silently, while a conflict was going on in his own mind. She considered him the embodiment of strength and goodness, and believed implicitly in a most godlike mind which she attributed to him. And he knew she thought that of him. Women’s eyes have the habit of confiding such opinions, to the men concerning whom they hold them, when their tongues may not say the same things. Michael knew very well that he was nothing at all like what she imagined him to be; indeed, he perhaps would not have been what she thought him if he could. He was, as he knew, something a great deal more serviceable and useful in this working day world—a man, with a man’s wants and failings and weaknesses. And the desire which just then was stronger in him than anything else was, not to lecture this young woman, from the superior standpoint of a godlike intelligence, on the futility of her cries and tears, but to clasp her in his arms, and tell her that it was all very dreadful—even more dreadful than she in her innocence knew or could understand yet, and that he only asked her to let him take the half of all her trouble upon himself. That was his impulse, even as he stood here. And the conflicting agency, which beat back this desire was, the fear lest to do what he wished now might bear the semblance of entrapping her, of taking her unawares, and of making her need into his opportunity. Not very godlike this, nor very superior, but quite human.
‘All is of no use, then?’ she said at last, raising her face, tear-stained and disfigured, from her hands, and looking at him. Then, as if a sudden thought had struck her, she rose and came hastily near to where he stood.