“No matter who. Go after him. You can’t fail to overtake him yet. Oh! bring him back, and then we’ll see whether she—”
“We may go twenty ways, and not the right one,” said the corporal of the guard, coming up and taking part in this hurried dialogue.
“No, no!” cried the woman, “you can’t go the wrong one. Pass out by the back of the park. Take the road for Hedgerley; only don’t turn that way. Keep the back path straight on by Wapsey’s Wood. That’s the way they’re to take: it was all arranged. Come! I’ll go along with you—Come! come!”
In the voice thus earnestly directing the pursuit of the escaped prisoner, could be recognised that, which, scarce twenty minutes before, had been so earnestly urging him to escape—the voice of Bet Dancey!
Was it a ruse to mislead the guard, or send them on a wrong track? No: it was her design to cause his recapture.
In the short period of ten minutes a change had passed over Betsey’s proud spirit—transforming her from a self-sacrificing friend, to an enemy equally devoting herself to Holtspur’s destruction.
In her outraged bosom a revulsion had arisen that stirred her soul to its profoundest depths, and filled her heart with eager longings of revenge. She had seen the man she madly loved—for whom she had risked, if not life, at least liberty and reputation—in the arms of another; a bright and beautiful rival; his own arms fondly entwining that other’s form; his lips fervently pressing hers. No wonder the heart of the passionate peasant, distraught by such a spectacle, had yielded to the promptings of revenge!
“Come on!” she cried, gesticulating to the cuirassiers to follow her, “on to the Hedgerley road!”
“Our horses?” suggested the guard corporal.
“No, no!” responded the girl. “By the time you could get them, he will have gone where I don’t know to find him. Come as you are; and I’ll answer for overtaking them now. They won’t have any horses till they get beyond Wapsey’s Wood. Come then, if you want to retake your prisoner.”