Run to Earth: A Novel

by M. E. Braddon

"If I live, I shall go back to the castle at daybreak to-morrow morning—go back to denounce your villany—to implore my husband's vengeance on your infamy!"

"And do you think any one will believe your denunciation? You will go back too late Lady Eversleigh."

"Oh, villain! villain!" murmured Honoria, in accents of mingled abhorrence and despair—abhorrence of her companion's infamy, despair inspired by the horror of her own position.

"You have played for a very high stake, Lady Eversleigh," said the surgeon; "and you must not wonder if you have found opponents ready to encounter your play with a still more desperate, and a still more dexterous game. When a nameless and obscure woman springs from poverty and obscurity to rank and riches, she must expect to find others ready to dispute the prize which she has won."

"And there can exist a wretch calling himself a man, and yet capable of such an act as this!" cried Honoria, looking upward to the calm and cloudless sky, as if she would have called heaven to witness the iniquity of her enemy. "Do not speak to me, sir," she added, turning to Victor Carrington, with unutterable scorn. "I believed a few minutes ago that you were a madman, and I thought myself the victim of a maniac's folly. I understand all now. You have plotted nobly for your friend's service; and he will, no doubt, reward you richly if you succeed. But you have not yet succeeded. Providence sometimes seems to favour the wicked. It his favoured you, so far; but the end has not come yet."

She turned from him and walked to the opposite side of the tower. Here she seated herself on the battlemented wall, as calm, in outward seeming, as if she had been in her own drawing-room. She took out a tiny jewelled watch; by that soft light she could perceive the figures on the dial.

It was a few minutes after one o'clock. It was not likely that the man who had charge of the ruins would come to the tower until seven or eight in the morning. For six or seven hours, therefore, Honoria Eversleigh was likely to be a prisoner—for six or seven hours she would have to endure the hateful presence of the man whose treachery had placed her in this hideous position.

Despair reigned in her heart, entire and overwhelming despair. When released from her prison, she might hurry back to the castle. But who would believe a story so wild, so improbable, as that which she would have to tell?

Would her husband believe her? Would he, who had to all appearance withdrawn his love from her for no reason whatever—would he believe in her purity and truth, when circumstances conspired in damning evidence of her guilt? A sense of hopeless misery took possession of her heart; but no cry of anguish broke from her pale lips. She sat motionless as a statue, with her eyes fixed upon the eastern horizon, counting the moments as they passed with cruel slowness, watching with yearning gaze for the first glimmer of morning.

Victor Carrington contemplated that statuesque figure, that pale and tranquil face, with unalloyed admiration. Until to-night he had despised women as frail, helpless creatures, only made to be flattered by false words, and tyrannized over by stronger natures than their own. Among all the women with whom he had ever been associated, his mother was the only one in whose good sense he had believed, or for whose intellect he had felt the smallest respect. But now he beheld a woman of another stamp—a woman whose pride and fortitude were akin to the heroic.