“I shall go home first,” I said, “and see that all is right. Kitty has got a bit for me to eat; and perhaps she will come down with me, in about an hour’s time, if she is not too tired. You go and have your supper, uncle.”
With this, I set off, having long been uneasy, partly perhaps at what Tabby had said, and partly at having been so long from home. But I whistled a tune, and went cheerfully along, for the night was beautiful, and the trees, still piled with blossom, rose against the starry sky, like cones of snow.
Our door was wide open, which surprised me just a little, for my wife was particular about that. Then I went into the passage, and called—“Kitty, Kitty!” but heard no sweet voice say, “Yes, dear!” Neither did any form more sweet than words of kindest greeting come. And my step rang through the passage with that hollow sound which an empty house seems to feel along every wall. With a terrible thumping in my breast, I turned into our little parlour, and struck against a straggling chair. There was no light burning, the window was wide open, the curtains undrawn, the room felt like a well, and the faint light from the sky upon the table showed that no supper-cloth was laid. Shouting for Kitty, in a voice of fear which startled myself, I groped my way to the mantelpiece where the matches stood. They were in a little ornament which we had brought from Baycliff; my trembling hand upset it, and they fell upon the rug. I picked up half a dozen, I struck them anyhow on the grate, and lit a small wax candle which we had considered rather grand. The room was in good order, there was nothing to tell any thing; but I knew that it had not been occupied for hours.
“She is gone,” I exclaimed, though with no one to hear me; “my Kitty is gone. She is gone for ever.”
I lit the fellow-candle, and left it burning on the table, while I hurried to the kitchen, though I knew it was in vain. The kitchen fireplace was gray with cold ashes; there was not a knife and fork nor a plate set out, and the white deal table had no cooking-cloth upon it. Then I gave up calling “Kitty,” as I had been doing all along, till I ran upstairs to our pretty bedroom; and there I called for her once more. When there came no answer, I fell upon the bed, and wondered whether I was mad.
All my wits must have left me in the bitterness of woe. I seemed even to accept it as a thing to be expected, not to want to know the reason, but to take it like death. Who I was, I knew not for the time, nor tried to think; but lay as in a blank of all things, only conscious of a misery I could not strive against. I did not even pray to die; for it seemed to make no difference.
Then up I got, with some sudden change, and the ring of my heel on the floor, as I struck it without measuring distance, now echoed in my brain; and anger sent anguish to the right-about. “This is the enemy’s work,” I cried; “it serves me right for not wringing their necks, for their cursed tricks at Hounslow. So help me God, who has made them and me, I will send them to Him, this time.”
My strength was come back, and the vigour of my limbs, and the iron control of every nerve. Until the sense of wrong had touched me, I was but a puling fool. I had felt that all my life was gone, with her who was the spring of it, and that nothing lay before me, but to put up my legs and moan. But praised be the Lord, who has given us that vivid sense of justice which of all His gifts is noblest, here I stood, a man again; ready to fight the Devil, and my brethren who are full of him.