“In love with him!” cried Eleanor Vane, with a shudder, “oh! no, no.”
“And yet you seem sorry at having left Hazlewood?”
“I am sorry; I—I had many reasons for wishing to stay there.”
“You were attached to your companion, Miss Mason?”
“Yes, I was very much attached to her,” answered Eleanor. “Don’t ask me any more questions to-night, dear Signora. I’m tired out with my journey and the excitement of—all—that has happened to-day; I will explain things more fully to-morrow. I am glad to come back to you—very, very glad to see you once more, dearest friend; but I had a strong reason for wishing to stay at Hazlewood,—I have a powerful motive for wanting to go back there, if I could go back, which I fear I never can.” The girl stopped abruptly, as if absorbed in her own thoughts, and almost unconscious of her friend’s presence.
“Well, well, Nelly, I won’t question you any further,” Eliza Picirillo said, soothingly. “Goodness knows, my dear, I am glad enough to have you with me, without worrying you about the why and the wherefore. But I must go and try and get your little room ready again for you, or perhaps, as it’s late, you’d better sleep with me to-night.”
“If you please, dear Signora.”
The music-mistress hurried away to make some preparations in the bedchamber adjoining the little sitting-room; and Eleanor Vane sat staring at the guttering tallow-candles on the table before her—lost in the tumult and confusion of her thoughts, which as yet took no distinct form in her brain.
At the very moment in which she had set a barrier between herself and Hazlewood that might prevent her ever crossing the threshold of its gates, she had made a discovery which rendered that retired country dwelling-house the one spot upon earth to which she had need to have free access.
“I fancied that I was going away from my revenge when I left London to go into Berkshire,” she thought; “now I leave my revenge behind me at Hazlewood. And yet, how can it be as I think? How can it be so? Launcelot Darrell went to India a year before my father died. Can it be only a likeness after all—an accidental likeness—between that man and Mrs. Darrell’s son?”