“What is it?” she asked, drawing a step nearer. “What is it?” It seemed to Innocent that something held her, that she could not look at the figure in the bed.
“Oh, my darling! my darling! I have nursed her from a baby—she never was but good to me. Oh, my child, my ’Manda! Will you never speak to me again! Oh, ’Manda, my darling! Oh, my lovely angel!” Thus poor aunty moaned and wept.
“What is it?” cried Innocent, with a voice which took authority from absolute despair.
“Oh, can’t you see for yourself? It’s you as has done it, driving that angel wild. She’s dead! Oh, merciful Heaven, she’s dead——”
Then a sudden flood of light seemed to pour through Innocent’s darkened mind. The horror which she had felt vaguely took shape and form. Heaven help the child! She had done it! She gave a low wild cry, and looked round her with a despairing appeal to heaven and earth. Was there no one to protect her—no one to help her? One moment she paused, miserable, bewildered, then turned and fled out of the awful room, where so much had befallen her. What could she do? where could she go? She fled as an animal flies to its cover—to its home, unreasoning, unthinking. Frederick would have represented that home to her in any other circumstances; but she had killed Frederick’s wife. This horror seemed to take form and pursue her. The maids were all gone: one to call the unhappy father, one to the husband, another to watch for the doctor; this last had left the door open, through which another blast of night-air swept through the house. Down the narrow staircase poor Innocent fled noiseless, like a thief. Upon a table in the passage lay her hat as she had thrown it off when she came in that afternoon with Frederick, and the warm wrap in which Miss Vane had enveloped her when they started, so peacefully, so happily, for their drive. Was it only that morning? The High Lodge, and its orderly life and its calm inhabitants, seemed to Innocent like things she had known ages ago; older even than Pisa and Niccolo—almost beyond the range of memory. She stole out at the open door, drawing Miss Vane’s great shawl round her, and for a moment feeling comforted in the chill of her misery by its warmth. For one second she stood on the step, with the moonlight on her face, wondering where she was to go. The maid who was watching for the doctor saw her, and cried out with terror, thinking her a ghost. Then a sudden cloud came over the moon, and in that shelter, like a guilty thing, Innocent stole away. She did not know where to go. She wandered on through the dark and still village streets to the great Minster, with some vain childish imagination of taking refuge there. But here chance befriended the unhappy girl, or some kind angel guided her. The railway was close by, with some lights yet unextinguished. Vaguely feeling that by that was the only way home, she stole into the station, with some notion of hiding herself till she could get away. The express train to town, which stopped at Sterborne, though poor Innocent knew nothing of it, was late that night. It had just arrived when she got in. The little station was badly lighted, the officials sleepy and careless. By instinct Innocent crept into an empty carriage, not knowing even that it was going on, and in five minutes more was carried, unconscious, wrapt in a tragic stupor of woe and terror, away from the scene of this terrible crisis of her life.
Gradually, slowly, the sense of motion roused her, brought her to herself. In her hand, firmly clasped, was the little phial which had been so deadly. She unclosed her fingers with an effort, and looked at it with miserable curiosity. That had done it—a thing so small that it was hidden altogether in her small and delicate hand. What had Innocent done? How could she have helped herself? What could she have done different? For the first time in all her life she turned her hot confused eyes upon herself. She tried to go back over the events of the night;—not as in a mental survey with all their varieties of feeling disclosed, but like an external picture did they rise before her. First that moment when she (Innocent could think of her now by no name) was not angry or scolding, when Frederick sat and talked, and she herself stood and fanned her, the central figure to which henceforward all her terrified thoughts must cling. Then came the moonlight in the garden, the smell of the dewy earth, and her hand on Frederick’s arm; then the reading, which seemed like some strange incantation, some spell of slumbrous power; then the horrible sudden waking, the clutch of that hot hand, the incoherent half-conscious effort she made to do what was told her, the black drops of liquid falling, the interrupted counting which she seemed to try to take up again and complete—“ten, eleven, fifteen;” and then the terror of the renewed clutch and grasp, the sudden stillness, the black drops standing out on the white coverlid, the great open eyes dilated, fixed upon her, holding her fast so that she could not stir. God help the child! She cried aloud, but the noise drowned her cry; she struggled under the intolerable sense of anguish, the burden of the pang which she could not get free from, could not shake off. So many pangs come in youth which are imaginary, which can be thrown off, as the first impression fades; but when for the first time there comes something which fixes like the vulture, which will not be got rid of!—Innocent writhed under it, holding up her feeble hands in an appeal beyond words—an appeal which was hopeless and which was vain.
It was still only the middle of the night when she arrived in London, and by some fortunate chance or other crept out again without being perceived. Poor child! Far from her distraught soul was any intention of deceiving; she thought nothing at all about it, and in her innocence, without consciousness of harm, escaped all penalties and questioning. She did not know her way about London, but by mere chance took the right direction, and by dint of wandering on and on, came at last by a hundred detours, as morning began to break into a region with which she was familiar. The movement did her good. She felt her misery less when she was walking on and on through interminable streets, wrapping her shawl about her, feeling her limbs ready to sink under her, and her power of feeling dulled by fatigue. Probably this exercise saved her from going mad altogether. Life and more than life hung on the balance. She was not clever; she had no grasp of mind, no power of reason, nothing which could be called intellectual development at all, and yet the difference between sanity and insanity was as much to her as to others. She kept her reason through the subduing force of this exercise, the blessed movement and the weariness of body which counteracted the unaccustomed struggles of her mind.
It was gray dawn, that chill twilight of the morning which is so much colder and less genial than the twilight of night, when Innocent came at last in sight of her home. Her strength and courage were almost at an end, but her feeble heart leapt up within her at sight of the familiar place in which she knew shelter and comfort were to be found. She had never said anything which showed her appreciation of her aunt’s tenderness, and had offered but little response to all the affection that had been lavished on her; but yet a slow-growing trust had arisen in her mind. She had no doubt how she was to be received; she knew that kind arms would take her in, kind eyes pity her, kind voices soothe her trouble—and never in all her life had Innocent stood in such need of succour. The house was like some one asleep, with its eyes closed, so to speak, the shutters shut, the curtains drawn, and no one stirring. Innocent sat down upon the step to wait. She did not ring or knock for admittance. She sat down and leant upon the pillar of the porch with a patience which had some hope in it. She could wait now, for her difficulties were over, and her goal within reach. She had fallen half asleep when the housemaid undid the door, and with a scream perceived the unexpected watcher.
“Miss Innocent!” cried the woman, half in terror, half in disapproval; for indeed Innocent’s odd ways were the wonder of the house, and the servants professed openly that they would not be surprised whatever she might choose to do. Innocent opened her eyes and roused herself with an effort.
“Yes, it is me,” she said softly. “I had to come home—by the night train.”