Cord and Creese Part 68

Suddenly she bounded up, and ran as one runs for life. Her long rest had refreshed her. Despair gave her strength. But the pursuer was on her track. Swiftly, and still more swiftly, his footsteps came up behind her. He was gaining on her. Still she rushed on.

At last a strong hand seized her by the shoulder, and she sank down upon the moss that lay under the forest trees.

"Who are you?" cried a familiar voice.

"Vijal!" cried Beatrice.

The other let go his hold.

"Will you betray me?" cried Beatrice, in a mournful and despairing voice.

Vijal was silent.

"What do you want?" said he, at last. "Whatever you want to do I will help you. I will be your slave."

"I wish to escape."

"Come then--you shall escape," said Vijal.

Without uttering another word he walked on and Beatrice followed. Hope rose once more within her. Hope gave strength. Despair and its weakness had left her. After about half an hour's walk they reached the park wall.

"I thought it was a poacher," said Vijal, sadly; "yet I am glad it was you, for I can help you. I will help you over the wall."

He raised her up. She clambered to the top, where she rested for a moment.

"G.o.d bless you, Vijal, and good-by!" said she.

Vijal said nothing.

The next moment she was on the other side. The road lay there. It ran north away from the village. Along this road Beatrice walked swiftly.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

"PICKED UP ADRIFT."

On the morning following two travelers left a small inn which lay on the road-side, about ten miles north of Brandon. It was about eight o'clock when they took their departure, driving in their own carriage at a moderate pace along the road.

"Look, Langhetti," said the one who was driving, pointing with his whip to an object in the road directly in front of them.

Langhetti raised his head, which had been bowed down in deep abstraction, to look in the direction indicated. A figure was approaching them. It looked like a woman. She walked very slowly, and appeared rather to stagger than to walk.

"She appears to be drunk, Despard," said Langhetti. "Poor wretch, and on this bleak March morning too! Let us stop and see if we can do any thing for her."

They drove on, and as they met the woman Despard stopped.

She was young and extraordinarily beautiful. Her face was thin and white. Her clothing was of fine materials but scanty and torn to shreds.

As they stopped she turned her large eyes up despairingly and stood still, with a face which seemed to express every conceivable emotion of anguish and of hope. Yet as her eyes rested on Langhetti a change came over her. The deep and unutterable sadness of her face pa.s.sed away, and was succeeded by a radiant flash of joy. She threw out her arms toward him with a cry of wild entreaty.

The moment that Langhetti saw her he started up and stood for an instant as if paralyzed. Her cry came to his ears. He leaped from the carriage toward her, and caught her in his arms.

"Oh, Bice! Alas, my Bicina!" he cried, and a thousand fond words came to his lips.

Beatrice looked up with eyes filled with grateful tears; her lips murmured some inaudible sentences; and then, in this full a.s.surance of safety, the resolution that had sustained her so long gave way altogether. Her eyes closed, she gave a low moan, and sank senseless upon his breast.

Langhetti supported her for a moment, then gently laid her down to try and restore her. He chafed her hands, and did all that is usually done in such emergencies. But here the case was different--it was more than a common faint, and the animation now suspended was not to be restored by ordinary efforts.

Langhetti bowed over her as he chafed her hands. "Ah, my Bicina," he cried; "is it thus I find you! Ah, poor thin hand! Alas, white wan face!

What suffering has been yours, pure angel, among those fiends of h.e.l.l!"

He paused, and turned a face of agony toward Despard. But as he looked at him he saw a grief in his countenance that was only second to his own. Something in Beatrice's appearance had struck him with a deeper feeling than that merely human interest which the generous heart feels in the sufferings of others.

"Langhetti," said he, "let us not leave this sweet angel exposed to this bleak wind. We must take her back to the inn. We have gained our object.

Alas! the gain is worse than a failure."

"What can we do?"

"Let us put her in the carriage between us, and drive back instantly."

Despard stooped as he spoke, raised her reverently in his arms, and lifted her upon the seat. He sprang in and put his arms around her senseless form, so as to support her against himself. Langhetti looked on with eyes that were moist with a sad yet mysterious feeling.

Then he resumed his place in the carriage.

"Oh, Langhetti!" said Despard, "what is it that I saw in the face of this poor child that so wrings my heart? What is this mystery of yours that you will not tell?"

"I can not solve it," said Langhetti, "and therefore I will not tell it."

"Tell it, whatever it is."

"No, it is only conjecture as yet, and I will not utter it."

"And it affects me?"

"Deeply."

"Therefore tell it."

"Therefore I must not tell it; for if it prove baseless I shall only excite your feeling in vain."

"At any rate let me know. For I have the wildest fancies, and I wish to know if it is possible that they are like your own."

"No, Despard," said Langhetti. "Not now. The time may come, but it has not yet."

Beatrice's head leaned against Despard's shoulder as she reclined against him, sustained by his arm. Her face was upturned; a face as white as marble, her pure Grecian features showing now their faultless lines like the sculptured face of some G.o.ddess. Her beauty was perfect in its cla.s.sic outline. But her eyes were closed, and her wan, white lips parted; and there was a sorrow on her face which did not seem appropriate to one so young.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE LEAPED FROM THE CARRIAGE TOWARD HER, AND CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS."]