“Give me the light, boy,” he cried, with a dull foreboding at his heart, and he and the servant entered the room together.
She was not there. What was more, nothing was there—literally
nothing—except the cross of Him who gave his all, his very life, for men.
“I fear, I fear,” this John said, trembling; and he took the crucifix down, and carried it with him for defence against invisible foes whom he dreaded far more than anything he could see.
“We will go look for her, O’Rourke,” the servant said. “I must find her for Miss Eleanora, if not for her own sake.”
In the kitchen supper was on the table, and the fire crackled on the hearth. Her loving father had been waiting long for her. Where was the child?
They asked the question at every tenement and every room. The people joined them in the search for her whom they all held dear. On the outskirts of the place, and where the road stretched out without another sign of habitation for five miles to Teal, was a lonely hovel.
“She’s there,” one woman said to another. “’Course she’s there. Might ’a’ known it. Jake Ireton’s wife had twins yesterday, and it’s little else they have. She’s there, caring for ’em.”
Yet they paused at the door, as if loath to open it. The whole throng seemed to feel that vague foreboding which John O’Rourke had felt; those who were able to crowd into the narrow room entered it timidly. What was it that they dreaded?
In the grand saloon of Errick mansion, decked like a regal ballroom, John Rossetti’s daughter, attired gorgeously like the French queen in the famous painting which is Malton’s pride, received her courtiers; and the band played the gay dance-music, and the light feet of the dancers glided over the floors.