She walked nervously across the stable-yard, and looked down the drive.
Lo! and behold a trim little carriage was just entering, and perched on the box beside a strange coachman was Jane herself.
"Jane!" screamed Charlotte, "where's Miss Elaine?"
The carriage came to a standstill, and Elaine, white, and, somehow, altered-looking, stood up in it.
"Here I am, Aunt Char," she said; "I am quite safe."
"But what—what—what has happened?" gasped Miss Charlotte, staring at Elaine's travelling-companion. "Jane, what has happened?"
For all answer, Jane went off into a perfect volley of hysterics. It was scarcely to be wondered at, for her day's experience had far exceeded anything which had previously happened to her in all her fifty years of life.
Miss Charlotte was greatly alarmed, however, as Jane's usual demeanor was staid and unemotional to a degree. She ran for sal volatile, salts, for she hardly knew what, and soon her agitated and broken utterances drew Fanny and Emily out into the stable-yard.
Elaine did not go into hysterics. She stood up, very white, with shining eyes, which seemed bluer and larger than usual, as Lady Mabel introduced herself to the ladies, and began a clear and graphic description of what had taken place. It seemed too incredible, too horrifying to be true, that their little Edge Combe had been the scene of such violence and bloodshed.
So overcome were they that they quite forgot even to thank Lady Mabel for her kindness in bringing Elaine home, until she said, with a charmingly graceful bow, "And now I will not keep you, as I know you are longing to be rid of me;" and extended a hand in leave taking.