Who that had for a moment contemplated the proud and happy position of Lady Lechester, the observed of all observers, would have credited that such a hankering, such an extraordinary belief, still possessed her mind?
Time flew, and there remained but one brief week till the marriage day. Marese was to come to The Towers on the morrow, and stay till the day previous to the ceremony when he was, in obedience to the old etiquette, to sleep at Barnham. For one day only would she be alone at The Towers. Marese came; the hours flew; some little warmth infused itself even into their cold intercourse. Just before dinner he left The Towers for Barnham. After dark, Lady Agnes went out alone, wrapped in her plaid shawl, and made her way to “The Pot.”
The morrow was her wedding-day, yet the old fascination had conquered—she could not resist it. Once more, for the last time, she would look upon the face of that glorious being, and beg his forgiveness. It was May now—beautiful May. The beech trees were covered with foliage, the air was soft and warm, and there was a delicate odour at times of the hawthorn blossom borne upon the gentle breeze. Only in places there was a low white mist, a dew hanging like a light cloud a few feet above the earth. A thin column of such a mist hung over the mouth of “The Pot,” spectral, ghost-like. There had been heavy rains previously, and the river was swollen and turbid. Its roar came up in a sullen hoarse murmur through the narrow tunnel. Over the steep down or cliff there shone one lucent planet—the evening star.
Agnes stole out from among the fern and beech trees, and stood beside the great decaying oak trunk, leaning lightly against it. Before her but two steps was the mouth of “The Pot,” and over it hovered the thin mist.
The old, old fascination fell upon her, the same half unconsciousness of all surrounding things. The star grew dim, the roar of the river receded to an immense distance, and then arose the spirit. What intercourse they had cannot be told: whether she half yielded to the desire to soar above this earthly ball, and stepped forward to his embrace—whether she eagerly implored for pardon for her weakness, dazzled by worldly glory.
The dog Dando had followed her unchidden. He alone of all that had pertained to Aymer and Violet, Agnes had retained. He knew the old path so well. He crouched so still at the foot of the great oak trunk. So quietly, so heedlessly, taking no heed of the figure, the shadow that stole onward in the dark beneath the beech trees—stole forward from trunk to trunk, from bunch of fern to hawthorn bush.
A grey shadow in the form of a man—a crouching, stealthy, gliding approach—yet the dog Dando made no sign. And Agnes stood with arms extended almost over the mouth of “The Pot.” And the grey shadow reached the hollow oak trunk.
In the left hand of this shadow was a tin whistle.