“God help me! at the eve of what an abyss I stand. That wretched woman, poor as she is, and nearly mad, in a place like London she’ll be certain to find lawyers only too glad to take up her case, and force me to a trial—first, a trial to prove a marriage and make costs of me, and then, Heaven knows what more; and the publicity, and the miserable uncertainty; and Alice, poor little Alice. Merciful Heaven! what had she done to merit this long agony and possible ruin?”
He peeped into the dining-room as he passed, but all was there as he had left it. Alice had not been in it. So at the kitchen door he knocked.
“Who’s there? Is anyone there?”
Encouraged by his voice old Dulcibella answered from within. The door was opened, and he entered.
A few moments’ silence, except for Alice’s murmured and sobbing welcome, a trembling, close embrace, and he said, with a gentle look, in a faint tone—
“Alice, darling, I have no good news to tell. Everything has gone wrong with me, and we must leave this. Let Dulcibella go up and get such things as are necessary to take with you; but, Dulcibella, mind you tell nobody your mistress is leaving this. And, Alice, you’ll come with me. We’ll go where they can neither follow nor trace us; and let fate do its worst. We may be happier yet in our exile than ever we were at home. And when they have banished me they have done their worst.”
His tenderness for Alice, frozen for a time, had returned. As she clung to him, her large, soft gray eyes looking up in his face so piteously moved him. He had intended a different sort of speech—colder, dryer—and under the spell of that look had come this sudden gush of a better feeling—the fond clasp of his arm, and the hurried kiss he pressed upon her cheek.
“I said, Alice, happier, happier, darling, a thousandfold. For the present I speak in riddles. You have seen how miserable I am. I’ll tell you everything by-and-by. A conspiracy, I do believe, an unnatural conspiracy, that has worn out my miserable brain and spirits, and harassed me to death. I’ll tell you all time enough, and you’ll say it is a miracle I have borne it as I do. Don’t look so frightened, you poor little thing. We are perfectly safe; I’m in no real danger, but harassed incessantly—only harassed, and that, thank God, shall end.”
He kissed her again very tenderly, and again; and he said—
“You and Dulcibella shall go on. Clinton will drive you to Hatherton, and there you’ll get horses and post on to Cranswell, and I will overtake you there. I must go now and give him his directions, and I may as well leave you this note. I wrote it yesterday. You must have some money—there is some in it, and the names of the places, and we’ll be there to-night. And what is it, darling? You look as if you wished to ask me something.”