"Mrs. Jones," cried she, "can you not get any one to go to look for my sister? She may be on her way down the hill, and have got into some difficulty with the pony."
"Indeed, miss, I don't know what I can do. There's no one nearer than old Thomas and he can't move."
"The strange gentleman!" said Helen suddenly; "your other lodger. Would he not help me?"
"He has been out since early this morning," replied Mrs. Jones, "and he told me he was not sure of being back to-night. He has gone to meet a friend."
Helen felt more in despair than before. It seemed an aggravation of her anxiety to have to lie still on the sofa doing nothing. Indeed had she been able to do so, nothing would have prevented her making her way to the Black Lake, and too probably losing her own life in the endeavour to save her sister's. As it was, she managed at last to drag herself to the door in hopes of hearing footsteps up the path, but nothing broke the silence save the tick, tick of the clock. It wore on to nine, despite her wretchedness and indescribable anxiety. She pictured to herself her sister, her dear little Edith, left so specially in her charge, cowering on the moor, alone in that dreary darkness, sobbing in despair of ever finding her way out of that frightful desert. Or, worse still, lying cold and dead in one of those fearful pits under the mockingly beautiful moss; whence, in all probability, her poor body even would never be recovered. It was too frightful. Helen almost shrieked aloud: "Oh, my darling, my little sister, come back, do come back. Oh, Malcolm, if only you were here. How terribly I am punished for my self-will!" And terribly punished she was, for the memory of that night's suffering was too painful to recall in after years without a shudder. Mrs. Jones was in helpless distress, though in hopes of every moment hearing the pony and the young lady at the gate, and she returned to her own domains saying she had better have hot water ready as Miss Edith would be fainting for her tea. Helen remained alone at the window of the sitting-room.
The night was fine but very dark. Darker than she had ever seen a night before, it seemed to Helen. She was almost in a stupor of despair. She sank down half-unconsciously before the fire and never knew how long she had lain there when she was roused by the clock striking. "One, two, three, four,"—she counted aloud as if bewitched, till when it got to the fatal thirteen, her over-strained nerves gave way, and with a scream she ran or stumbled, she knew not how, along the passage to seek for Mrs. Jones. As she passed the front-door she was arrested by the sharp sounds of steps coming quickly up the garden path. The door was pushed open. The only light was what came through the open door of the room she had just left, and she could distinguish nothing but a tall dark figure hurrying towards her. She screamed with terror but stood, unable to move, when to her intense relief a voice from behind the person she saw, exclaimed eagerly: "Helen, dearest Helen, don't be frightened. I am quite safe," and some one rushed past the tall person, now close to her, and kissing her passionately, Helen felt, rather than saw, that it was Edith.
"Malcolm! Malcolm! she is fainting!" called Edith, and the tall person pressed forward, caught her up in his arms like a baby, and, unconscious now of everything, Helen was carried back into the sitting-room, laid on the hard little sofa, and there held tenderly by the strong yet gentle arms whose protecting care she, poor foolish child, had fancied she could so well dispense with.
It was the first time in her life that Helen Beaumont had ever fainted, and it was not long before she began to recover.
"Malcolm! oh, Malcolm!" were her first words on returning consciousness (and it seemed to her afterwards as if some one else had spoken them for her, her good angel perhaps!), "can you ever forgive me?"
"My darling," was the whispered answer, "you know you need not ask it." And then Helen felt as if she were just going to die, but was too happy to care, and too languid to ask even how all this had come about. But now a third person came forward saying:—