Reveals some Secrets.
For some time we rushed hither and thither in breathless anxiety, convinced that having burned all her letters, her intentions were those of self-destruction.
Some untoward event had evidently occurred of which we knew nothing, and she had been forced to the last extremity. We had explored all my love’s favourite walks, but in that gusty storm that swept across the park we could hear nothing. It was not exactly dark, but the moon was overcast by heavy rain-clouds, and passing through that portion of the grounds known as “the wilderness,” a wild tangle of rhododendrons and laurels, with big old trees from which the leaves fell in showers upon us, we at length approached the lake, a large sheet of water in the centre of the wild uncultivated spot, where the moorhen nested undisturbed and the lordly heron roosted high above. The spot was lonely and unfrequented—the place, no doubt, she would select if she really intended to take her own life.
We both approached it, fearing the worst. The shrill cries of the night-birds sounded above the moaning of the wind, while before us lay the broad sheet of water grey and mysterious in the clouded moon.
We had walked some distance along its edge, when Keene suddenly gripped my arm, and whispered—
“Look!—look ahead! can’t you see her?—with a man!”
I strained my eyes, and there, sure enough, wearing a dark cloak, she stood erect, statuesque, with the pale light falling upon her white face, while the man had apparently gripped her arm and dragged her from the water’s edge.
Next moment I was beside the pair, and to my dismay recognised that her companion was the fellow Logan, whom I had last seen entering that dark unlit house outside Milan.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I cried in quick anger. “Release that lady, and tell me why I find you here with her.”
“I am here to save her,” was his calm reply. “I have already prevented her taking a fatal step, and if you will accompany me to the Hall I think you will find that, instead of proving myself her enemy, I shall show her that I am her friend. You think evil of me, I know—both of you. But an innocent woman’s life shall not be sacrificed. I came here from London to-night, in order to meet another lady, the Countess of Stanchester, but by good fortune I met Lady Lolita, and she has told me the truth.”