Russell rushed forth to the railway station, which was at least a mile from the village. She was transported out of herself with excitement, misery, a sense of wrong, a sense of remorse—all the conflicting passions which the crisis had brought. To prove to herself that her suspicions were justified about Madam was in reality as strong a motive in her mind as the fierce desire of revenge upon her mistress, which drove her nearly frantic; and she had that wild confidence in chance, and indifference to reason, which are at once the strength and weakness of the uneducated. She would get on the track somehow; she would find them somehow; Madam’s young man, and Madam herself. She would give him up to justice, and shame the woman for whose sake she had been driven forth. And, as it happened, Russell, taking her ticket for London, found herself in the same carriage with the man who had come in search of the stranger at the Red Lion, and acquired an amount of information and communicated a degree of zeal which stimulated the search on both sides. When they parted in town she was provided with an address to which to telegraph instantly on finding any trace of the fugitives, and flung herself upon the great unknown world of London with a faith and a virulence which were equally violent. She did not know where to go nor what to do; she had very little acquaintance with London. The Trevanions had a town house in a street near Berkeley Square, and all that she knew was the immediate neighborhood of that dignified centre—of all places in the world least likely to shelter the fugitives. She went there, however, in her helplessness, and carried consternation to the bosom of the charwoman in charge, who took in the strange intelligence vaguely, and gaped and hoped as it wasn’t true. “So many things is said, and few of ’em ever comes true,” this philosophical observer said. “But I’ve come out of the middle of it, and I know it’s true, every word,” she almost shrieked in her excitement. The charwoman was a little hard of hearing. “We’ll hope as it’ll all turn out lies—they mostly does,” she said. This was but one of many rebuffs the woman met with. She had spent more than a week wandering about London, growing haggard and thin; her respectable clothes growing shabby, her eyes wild—the want of proper sleep and proper food making a hollow-eyed spectre of the once smooth and dignified upper servant—when she was unexpectedly rewarded for all her pangs and exertions by meeting Jane one morning, sharply and suddenly, turning round a corner. The two women paused by a mutual impulse, and then one cried, “What are you doing here?” and the other, grasping her firmly by the arm, “I’ve caught you at last.”
“Caught me! Were you looking for me? What do you want? Has anything happened to the children?” Jane cried, beginning to tremble.
“The children! how dare you take their names in your mouth, you as is helping to ruin and shame them? I’ll not let you go now I’ve got you; oh, don’t think it! I’ll stick to you till I get a policeman.”
“A policeman to me!” cried poor Jane, who, not knowing what mysterious powers the law might have, trembled more and more. “I’ve done nothing,” she said.
“But them as you are with has done a deal,” cried Russell. “Where is that young man? Oh, I know— I know what he’s been and done. I have took an oath on my Bible that I’ll track him out. If I’m to be driven from my place and my dear children for Madam’s sake, she shall just pay for it, I can tell you. You thought I’d put up with it and do nothing, but a worm will turn. I’ve got it in my power to publish her shame, and I’ll do it. I know a deal more than I knew when I told master of her goings-on. But now I’ve got you I’ll stick to you, and them as you’re with, and I’ll have my revenge,” Russell cried, her wild eyes flaming, her haggard cheeks flushing; “I’ll have my revenge. Ah!”
She paused here with a cry of consternation, alarm, dismay, for there stepped out of a shop hard by, Madam herself, and laid a hand suddenly upon her arm.
“Russell,” she said, “I am sorry they have sent you away. I know you love the children.” At this a convulsive movement passed across her face, which sent through the trembling, awe-stricken woman a sympathetic shudder. They were one in this deprivation, though they were enemies. “You have always hated me, I do not know why: but you love the children. I would not have removed you from them. I have written to Miss Rosalind to bid her have you back when—when she is calmer. And you that have done me so much harm, what do you want with me?” said Madam, looking with the pathetic smile which threw such a strange light upon her utterly pale face, upon this ignorant pursuer.
“I’ve come— I’ve come”—she gasped, and then stood trembling, unable to articulate, holding herself up by the grasp she had taken with such different intentions of Jane’s arm, and gazing with her hollow eyes with a sort of fascination upon the lady whom at last she had hunted down.
“I think she is fainting,” Madam said. “Whatever she wants, she has outdone her strength.” There was a compassion in the tone, which, in Russell’s weakened state, went through and through her. Her mistress took her gently by the other arm, and led her into the shop she had just left. Here they brought her wine and something to eat, of which she had the greatest need. “My poor woman,” said Madam, “your search for me was vain, for Mr. John Trevanion knows where to find me at any moment. You have done me all the harm one woman could do another; what could you desire more? But I forgive you for my children’s sake. Go back, and Rosalind will take you again, because you love them; and take care of my darlings, Russell,” she said, with that ineffable smile of anguish; “say no ill to them of their mother.”
“Oh, Madam, kill me!” Russell cried.