Here was an exhibition of character which Alban was just the man to appreciate. “If I had been an old woman,” he thought in his dryly humorous way, “I believe I should have been like Mrs. Ellmother. We might have talked of Emily, if she had not left me in such a hurry. When shall I see her again?”
He was destined to see her again, that night—under circumstances which he remembered to the end of his life.
The rules of Netherwoods, in summer time, recalled the young ladies from their evening’s recreation in the grounds at nine o’clock. After that hour, Alban was free to smoke his pipe, and to linger among trees and flower-beds before he returned to his hot little rooms in the village. As a relief to the drudgery of teaching the young ladies, he had been using his pencil, when the day’s lessons were over, for his own amusement. It was past ten o’clock before he lighted his pipe, and began walking slowly to and fro on the path which led to the summer-house, at the southern limit of the grounds.
In the perfect stillness of the night, the clock of the village church was distinctly audible, striking the hours and the quarters. The moon had not risen; but the mysterious glimmer of starlight trembled on the large open space between the trees and the house.
Alban paused, admiring with an artist’s eye the effect of light, so faintly and delicately beautiful, on the broad expanse of the lawn. “Does the man live who could paint that?” he asked himself. His memory recalled the works of the greatest of all landscape painters—the English artists of fifty years since. While recollections of many a noble picture were still passing through his mind, he was startled by the sudden appearance of a bareheaded woman on the terrace steps.
She hurried down to the lawn, staggering as she ran—stopped, and looked back at the house—hastened onward toward the trees—stopped again, looking backward and forward, uncertain which way to turn next—and then advanced once more. He could now hear her heavily gasping for breath. As she came nearer, the starlight showed a panic-stricken face—the face of Mrs. Ellmother.
Alban ran to meet her. She dropped on the grass before he could cross the short distance which separated them. As he raised her in his arms she looked at him wildly, and murmured and muttered in the vain attempt to speak. “Look at me again,” he said. “Don’t you remember the man who had some talk with you to-day?” She still stared at him vacantly: he tried again. “Don’t you remember Miss Emily’s friend?”
As the name passed his lips, her mind in some degree recovered its balance. “Yes,” she said; “Emily’s friend; I’m glad I have met with Emily’s friend.” She caught at Alban’s arm—starting as if her own words had alarmed her. “What am I talking about? Did I say ‘Emily’? A servant ought to say ‘Miss Emily.’ My head swims. Am I going mad?”
Alban led her to one of the garden chairs. “You’re only a little frightened,” he said. “Rest, and compose yourself.”
She looked over her shoulder toward the house. “Not here! I’ve run away from a she-devil; I want to be out of sight. Further away, Mister—I don’t know your name. Tell me your name; I won’t trust you, unless you tell me your name!”