I found myself hurrying along the wild path, towards the house, with hardly a clear recollection, without one clear thought. I don't know whether he tried to detain me, or began to follow me. I remember, at the hall-door, from habit, going up a step or two, in great excitement—we act so nearly mechanically! A kind of horror seized me at sight of the half-open door. I turned and hurried down the avenue.
It was not until I had reached the "George and Dragon"—at the sleepiest hour, luckily, of the tranquil little town of Golden Friars—that I made a first effectual effort to collect my thoughts.
I was simply a fugitive. To return to Dorracleugh, where Richard Marston was now master, was out of the question. I was in a mood to accept all ill news as certain. It never entered my mind that he had intended to deceive me with respect to Sir Harry's will. Neither had he as to my actually unprovided state. Here then I stood a fugitive.
I walked up to Mr. Turnbull, the host of the "George and Dragon," whom I saw at the inn-door, and having heard his brief but genuine condolences, without half knowing what he was saying, I ordered a carriage to bring me to the railway station; and while I was waiting I wrote a note in the quiet little room, with a window looking across the lake, to the good vicar.
Mr. Turnbull was one of those heavy, comfortable persons who are willing to take everybody's business and reasons for granted. He therefore bored me with no surmises as to the reasons of my solitary excursion at so oddly chosen a time.
I think, now, that my wiser course would have been to go to the vicar, and explaining generally my objections to remaining at Dorracleugh, to have asked frankly for permission to place myself under his care until the arrival of Mr. Blount.
There were fifty other things I ought to have thought of, though I only wonder, considering the state in which my mind was at the moment, that I was able to write so coherently as I did to the vicar. I had my purse with me, containing fifty pounds, which poor Sir Harry had given me just before he left Dorracleugh. With no more than this, which I had fortunately brought down with me to the drawing-room, for the purpose of giving my maid a bank-note to take to the town to pay for my intended purchases, I was starting on my journey to London! Without luggage, or servant, or companion, or plan of any kind—inspired by the one instinct, to get as rapidly as possible out of sight and reach of Dorracleugh, and to earn my bread by my own exertions.
