CHAPTER THE LAST.
HOW LORD CHUDLEIGH RECEIVED HIS FREEDOM.
I returned to my lodging, there to await the event of the next morning. My lord would learn that he was free—so far good. But with his freedom would come the news that the woman who restored it to him was the same who had taken it away, and the same whom he had professed to love. Alas! poor Kitty!
Now was I like unto a man sentenced to death, yet allowed to choose the form of his execution, whether he would be hanged, poisoned, beheaded, stabbed, shot, drowned, or pushed violently and suddenly out of life in some other manner which he might prefer. As the time approaches, his anxiety grows the greater until the fatal moment arrives when he must choose at once; then, in trouble and confusion, he very likely chooses that very method which is most painful in the contemplation and the endurance. So with me. I might choose the manner of telling my lover all, but tell him I must. “Pray Heaven,” I said, “to direct me into the best way.” In the afternoon I became once more Phœbe.
Phœbe carried a dish of tea; would the gentleman choose to taste it? He took it from Phœbe’s hand, drank it, and returned to his writing, which was, I believe, a continuation of that letter, the commencement of which I had seen.
In the evening Sir Miles paid him a visit of consolation. He drank up what was left of the bottle, and, after staying an hour or so, went away, noisily promising himself a jovial night with the Doctor.
At eight o’clock Phœbe brought a tray with cold meat upon it, but my lord would take none, only bidding her to set it down and leave him.
“Can I do nothing more for you, sir?” asked the maid.
He started again.
“Your voice, child,” he said (although I had disguised my voice), “reminds of one whose voice——”