A faint little thrill of dread ran through her slight frame—thoughts began to oppress her and shake her courage—she resolutely put them away and bent herself to the practical side of action. Re-attiring herself in the plain black dress and hat which Priscilla had got for her mourning garb, she waited patiently for the first peep of daylight—a daylight which was little more than darkness—and then, taking her satchel, she crept softly out of her room, never once looking back. There was nothing to stay her progress, for the great mastiff Hero, since Hugo Jocelyn's death, had taken to such dismal howling that it had been found necessary to keep him away from the house in, a far-off shed where his melancholy plaints could not be heard. Treading with light, soundless footsteps down the stairs, she reached the front-door,—unbarred and unlocked it without any noise, and as softly closed it behind her,—then she stood in the open, shivering slightly in the sweet coldness of the coming dawn, and inhaling the fragrance of awakening unseen flowers. She knew of a gap in the hedge by means of which she could leave the garden without opening the big farm-gate which moved on rather creaking hinges—and she took this way over a couple of rough stepping-stones. Once out on the old by-road she paused. Briar Farm looked like a house in a dream—there was not enough daylight yet to show its gables distinctly, and it was more like the shadowy suggestion of a building than any actual substance. Yet there was something solemn and impressive in its scarcely defined outline—to the girl's sensitive imagination it was like the darkened and disappearing vision of her youth and happiness,—a curtain falling, as it were, between the past and the future like a drop-scene in a play.
"Good-bye, Briar Farm!" she whispered, kissing her hand to the quaintly peaked roof just dimly perceptible—"Good-bye, dear, beloved home! I shall never forget you! I shall never see anything like you! Good-bye, peace and safety!—good-bye!"
The tears rushed to her eyes, and for the moment blinded her,—then, overcoming this weakness, she set herself to walk quickly and steadily away. Up the old by-road, through the darkness of the overhanging trees, here and there crossed by pale wandering gleams of fitful light from the nearing dawn, she moved swiftly, treading with noiseless footsteps as though she thought the unseen spirits of wood and field might hear and interrupt her progress—and in a few minutes she found herself upon the broad highway branching right and left and leading in either direction to the wider world. Briar Farm had disappeared behind the trees,—it was as though no such place existed, so deeply was it hidden.
She stopped, considering. She was not sure which was the way to the nearest railway-station some eight miles distant. She was prepared to walk it, but feared to take the wrong road, for she instinctively felt that if she had to endure any unexpected delay, some one from Briar Farm would be sent to trace her and find out where she went. While she thus hesitated, she heard the heavy rumbling of slow cart-wheels, and waited to see what sort of vehicle might be approaching. It was a large waggon drawn by two ponderous horses and driven by a man who, dimly perceived by the light of the lantern fastened in front of him, appeared to be asleep. Innocent hailed him—and after one or two efforts succeeded at last in rousing his attention.
"Which is the way to the railway-station?" she asked.
The man blinked drowsily at her.
"Railway-station, is it? I be a-goin' there now to fetch a load o' nitrates. Are ye wantin' to git?"
"Wantin' to git" was a country phrase to which Innocent was well accustomed. She answered, gently—
"Yes. I should be so glad if you'd give me a lift—I'll pay you for it.
I have to catch the first train to London."
"Lunnon? Quiet, ye rascals!"—this to the sturdy horses who were dragging away at their shafts in stolid determination to move on—"Lunnon's a good way off! Ever bin there?"