"Yes, I learned that much by bribing his servant. He is going down into the country to-night in a hired conveyance, some twenty-five miles or more."
"For what reason?" Ivy asks, dimly divining a certain significance in her mother's manner.
"I do not know, but I strongly suspect it is to visit his captive countess, and present her with your diamonds," Mrs. Cleveland answers, divining the truth with a woman's ready wit.
"Oh, mamma!" screams Ivy.
"But I intend to follow him," pursues Mrs. Cleveland, "I mean to checkmate him if I can."
"I am going with you—remember that, mamma," her daughter cries out, hastily.
[CHAPTER XLV.]
While Lady Vera's friends are seeking with heavy hearts some clew to her strange fate, the fair young countess, half distracted with grief, remains a closely-guarded captive in the ruined mansion in the lonely wood. In spite of all her tears and protestations Betsy Robson persists in believing her to be a dangerous lunatic, and in treating her as such, albeit always kind and complaisant as to an ailing child.
The summer days glide slowly past, each one bearing some portion of hope from Vera's lonely heart. With the dawn of each day she had hoped for release—with the sunset of each day she had wept over her disappointment. The days were so long and lonely without books, music or occupation to beguile them of their length and dreariness. It seemed to Lady Vera almost as if she were dead and buried, living in this lonely house, seeing, hearing no one save stolid Betsy Robson, who glided about like another ghost in this strange world of the dead.