Mrs. Sundon was no longer occupied with Lady Bell. An infinitely nearer and dearer interest engrossed the listener; she never rested till she had drawn the particulars from Lady Bell, and then she declared, with paling cheeks and widening eyes, “Gregory Sundon must hear this; it warrants me in interrupting him, however engaged. What might have been the consequences, if this wicked plot had not been discovered in time? I owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude, Lady Bell, and so does he. Wait till I come back.”
But, after Mrs. Sundon had run to the door, she turned round, as if, in the middle of her alarm on her husband’s account, she had found room for another’s strait, and pledged herself solemnly, “You shall be protected, Lady Bell; your noble amends for the inhuman project will not be let rebound on your head,”—and was gone.
The pledge was of no avail; the moment that Lady Bell was alone again, the shame of her position, which had struck her while she was making her way through Squire Sundon’s people, returned to her with greater force than ever. A horror of what she had done seized upon her, and rendered her incapable of any other consideration.
What! remain and encounter her husband’s opponent, in order to denounce her husband to him, perhaps be taken before the Mayor, and compelled to repeat her words publicly, have the officers of justice sent, on her information, against Mr. Trevor and his associates, and be regarded with loathing as a traitor in their camp, as well as pursued by their vengeance to her dying day!
No! she could not bear that. She had said enough to put Mr. Sundon and his wife on their guard; she had meant, in a vague way, to appeal to Mrs. Sundon for advice and assistance—she was so ignorant that she did not know that their bestowal might lead the bestower into a serious difficulty—in making her escape farther from Squire Trevor. But every other trouble was merged in her present recoil from an interview with Mr. Sundon. This imminent danger seemed to involve greater and sorer evils than that of a desperate solitary flight.
With her head in a whirl, at the height of her panic, Lady Bell did not wait a moment after Mrs. Sundon had quitted her. Lady Bell went out as she had come in, through the swarming concourse, undetected.
CHAPTER XIII.
FLIGHT.
In the street Lady Bell set out walking rapidly—she dared not run—straight on in the opposite direction from her lodging. She had a conviction that she would get out of the town presently, and on the great road, where she might overtake a conveyance.
She had an instinctive perception that Mrs. Sundon, however grateful and concerned that Lady Bell should not suffer by her magnanimity, would be too much taken up with Mrs. Sundon’s own husband, with enlarging to him on the risk he had run, and the necessity of prudence in his future movements, to enter at once into a searching investigation of what had become of Lady Bell, and an eager tracking of her footsteps. After Mrs. Sundon had discovered that Lady Bell had not waited, but had gone with as little ceremony as she had come, Mrs. Sundon would naturally conclude that she had returned immediately to her husband, to prevent all suspicion, and to carry out her programme. For Lady Bell’s own sake, Mrs. Sundon would resolve to be quiet on the incident of her visit.
Lady Bell reckoned herself secure of not being missed by her husband for hours; and so soon as she was beyond the town the probability of her being recognised was lessened. She could venture to walk more slowly, and not wear out her strength at starting, to raise her veil, to push down the neckcloth wound about her chin and mouth, and allow herself a breath of the cool autumn air, in the fever heat of her progress, and the agitation which had attended on her adventure.