The valet took a wicker–covered flask from his pocket, and put the neck of it to Edward Arundel's lips.
"She may be found, Morrison," muttered the young man, after drinking a long draught of the fiery spirit; he would willingly have drunk living fire itself, in his desire to obtain unnatural strength in this crisis. "Yes; you're right there. She may be found. But to think that she should have been driven away! To think that my poor, helpless, tender girl should have been driven a second time from the home that is her own! Yes; her own by every law and every right. Oh, the relentless devil, the pitiless devil!––what can be the motive of her conduct? Is it madness, or the infernal cruelty of a fiend incarnate?"
Mr. Morrison thought that his young master's brain had been disordered by the shock he had just undergone, and that this wild talk was mere delirium.
"Keep your heart up, Mr. Edward," he murmured, soothingly; "you may rely upon it, the young lady has been found."
But Edward was in no mind to listen to any mild consolatory remarks from his valet. He had thrust his head out of the carriage–window, and his eyes were fixed upon the dimly–lighted casements of the western drawing–room.
"The room in which John and Polly and I used to sit together when first I came from India," he murmured. "How happy we were!––how happy we were!"
The carriage stopped before the stone portico, and the young man got out once more, assisted by his servant. His breath came short and quick now that he stood upon the threshold. He pushed aside the servant who opened the familiar door at the summons of the clanging bell, and strode into the hall. A fire burned on the wide hearth; but the atmosphere of the great stone–paved chamber was damp and chilly.
Captain Arundel walked straight to the door of the western drawing–room. It was there that he had seen lights in the windows; it was there that he expected to find Olivia Marchmont.
He was not mistaken. A shaded lamp burnt dimly on a table near the fire. There was a low invalid–chair beside this table, an open book upon the floor, and an Indian shawl, one he had sent to his cousin, flung carelessly upon the pillows. The neglected fire burned low in the old–fashioned grate, and above the dull–red blaze stood the figure of a woman, tall, dark, and gloomy of aspect.
It was Olivia Marchmont, in the mourning–robes that she had worn, with but one brief intermission, ever since her husband's death. Her profile was turned towards the door by which Edward Arundel entered the room; her eyes were bent steadily upon the low heap of burning ashes in the grate. Even in that doubtful light the young man could see that her features were sharpened, and that a settled frown had contracted her straight black brows.