"Quick!"
"There is your release!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "You have done your duty; draw a long breath, and hurry back into the light and freedom of the outer world. Quick! I must not keep you."
"You are wrong," I murmured, "I must go, but it is just as dark and miserable outside to me, as it is here for you. Don't fancy, Victor, that there is any pleasure for me now."
"You need not remind me of that!" he exclaimed, sinking down, and bowing his face on the table before him. "You need not remind me of that! I know I have dragged you down with me in my fall, and it is the cruellest thought in all my cruel anguish; but you shall be freed—be sure you shall be freed!"
"Why will you talk so strangely, Victor? What have I done to make you doubt me now? I would die to serve you—I have no other thought than how to save you from the danger that threatens"——
Kitty shook the door impatiently, and implored me to come out.
"I must go, Victor," I whispered. "Will you not speak to me? Good night."
I bent over him, and touched my lips to his forehead, and then groped my way hastily to the door. He did not move or speak, and I turned back irresolutely, to beg him for a word of forgiveness, but Kitty, opening the door, caught me by the hand, and pulled me out.
"They are all asking for you; Miss Josephine has been upstairs for you, and when she came down and said you weren't in your room, master looked so white, and started up so frightened, that the others all caught it of him, and began to call you and hunt all about for you; and I couldn't let you know, for old Roberts was marching up and down the hall, and keeping her eyes all about her. She's gone into her room a minute—now's your chance; run right down the private staircase—there's nobody in the butler's pantry—go out on the piazza, and so around to the front door. Quick! She's coming back!"
I should have done anything Kitty told me to do at that moment. It was lucky for me she was the clear-headed, ingenious girl she was. I ran downstairs, and hurried round the piazza. At the hall door I paused a moment, and leaned against one of the pillars, to recover myself before I entered. Some one hurrying out of the house brushed against me. An exclamation of surprise and relief escaped his lips, and looking up, I saw Mr. Rutledge.