For the last time she asked herself, "Shall I adventure it, or shall I not?" knowing all the while what the answer would be. By now the afternoon was so far advanced that she must no longer delay her preparations. She knew already that Mr. Tew would not set off on his return journey till dinner should be well over. She herself would start in the early dusk about an hour in advance of him.
She made it her first business to see John Dyce and have a little private talk with him. Next she invented an errand for her maid to a neighboring village which would keep that elderly damsel out of the way till after her own departure. Next came one of the most essential features of the programme she was bent on carrying out: the transformation of Miss Baynard into the guise of a young man.
The change was affected in due course, and a very handsome and dashing young blade she looked. She took a long survey of herself in the cheval glass, blushing and smiling as she did so. Nell was a tall, Juno-like young woman, and as her cousin Dick had been a somewhat slender, medium-sized young fellow, his clothes fitted her almost as if they had been made for her.
But servants have prying eyes, and not thus would it do for her to be seen leaving the house; besides, there was the risk of encountering some one in the village to whom her face was known. So, over her man's dress she now proceeded to put on certain articles of feminine attire, to wit, a long riding-skirt, and a mantle with a hood to it, the latter of which she drew over her head. It was a common enough costume for ladies travelling on horseback.
Into a couple of saddle-bags, which John Dyce had supplied her with, she had already stowed away a number of things. Then, when all was ready, she went down by way of the back staircase, and so out of the house, unseen by any one save a gaping kitchen wench. In the court near the stables were two horses in readiness, one of them being her mare Peggy, a birthday gift, two years before, from her godmother, Lady Carradine. John helped her into the saddle, then mounted his own horse, and two minutes later they were cantering down the avenue.
They rode through the village, and so on their way for a couple of miles or more till they reached a little wooded hollow somewhat removed from the high-road. There Nell, having doffed her riding skirt and hooded mantle (her hair having been previously brushed back from her forehead and fashioned into a queue), substituted for them the three-cornered hat worn by her cousin at the fancy ball, with, by way of overall, an ample riding cloak, well worn, which poor Dick had been used to travel in. These articles she produced from the saddle-bags. Neither was the mask forgotten. Although she had never seen Mr. Tew before that day, and then only for a few minutes, it would not do to leave the slightest opening for his recognition of her in the part she was bent on playing.
John, meanwhile, had been changing Peggy's sidesaddle for an ordinary one. That done, he again helped her to mount. It was as well for Nell in her new character that her mare had been thoroughly trained, and that she was a fearless horsewoman. Whatever awkwardness or embarrassment she might feel at first the friendly night covered up; but presently she had other things to think of than any little hot and cold shivers of her own. In the holsters in front of her were stuck a brace of unloaded pistols. John's pistols, however, were fully charged.
How Miss Baynard sped on her hare-brained expedition has already been told: how she mistook the chaise of a stranger for that of Mr. Tew; how she was fired at, but escaped with nothing worse than a fright; and how the notorious Captain Nightshade appeared in the nick of time and acted as her guide as far as Rockmount, where, under the name of Mr. Frank Nevill (that of a cousin in India) she was made welcome, and found shelter for the night.
We left her just after Mr. Cope-Ellerslie's housekeeper had shown her to her chamber; and now that the two threads of our narrative have been brought together we will take up her history from the following morning.
When "Mr. Frank Nevill" went downstairs he found an excellent breakfast awaiting him in the same room into which he had been shown overnight. He was waited upon by Mrs. Dobson, who expressed much concern at the smallness of his appetite. When the meal had come to an end she said, "At what o'clock, sir, would you like your horse to be brought round?"