Part 42 (2/2)

”What am I to do with my life,” she moaned. ”Mariana in the moated grange was not more to be pitied than I.”

How often the words occurred to her:

”The day is dreary, 'He cometh not,' she said: She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, would that I were dead.'”

It was one of the strangest, dullest, saddest lives that human being ever led. That she wearied of it was no wonder. She was tired of the sorrow, the suffering, the despair--so tired that after a time she fell ill; and then she lay longing for death.

Chapter x.x.xII.

It was a glorious September, and the Scottish moors looked as they had not looked for years; the heather grew in rich profusion, the grouse were plentiful. The prospects for sportsmen were excellent.

Not knowing what else to do, Lord Arleigh resolved to go to Scotland for the shooting; there was a sort of savage satisfaction in the idea of living so many weeks alone, without on-lookers, where he could be dull if he liked without comment--where he could lie for hours together on the heather looking up at the blue skies, and puzzling over the problem of his life--where, when the fit of despair seized him, he could indulge in it, and no one wonder at him. He hired a shooting-lodge called Glaburn. In his present state of mind it seemed to him to be a relief to live where he could not even see a woman's face. Glaburn was kept in order by two men, who mismanaged it after the fas.h.i.+on of men, but Lord Arleigh was happier there than he had been since his fatal marriage-day, simply because he was quite alone. If he spent more time in lying on the heather and thinking of Madaline than he did in shooting, that was his own concern--there was no one to interfere.

One day, when he was in one of his most despairing moods, he went out quite early in the morning, determined to wander the day through, to exhaust himself pitilessly with fatigue, and then see if he could not rest without dreaming of Madaline. But as he wandered east and west, knowing little and caring less, whither he went, a violent storm, such as breaks at times over the Scottish moors, overtook him. The sky grew dark as night, the rain fell in a torrent--blinding, thick, heavy--he could hardly see his hand before him. He wandered on for hours, wet through, weary, cold, yet rather rejoicing than otherwise in his fatigue. Presently hunger was added to fatigue; and then the matter became more serious--he had no hope of being able to find his way home, for he had no idea in what direction he had strayed.

At last he grew alarmed; life did not hold much for him, it was true, but he had no desire to die on those lonely wilds, without a human being near him. Then it became painful for him to walk; his fatigue was so great that his limbs ached at every step. He began to think his life was drawing near its close. Once or twice he had cried ”Madaline” aloud and the name seemed to die away on the sobbing wind.

He grew exhausted at last; for some hours he had struggled on in the face of the tempest.

”I shall have to lie down like a dog by the road-side and die,” he thought to himself.

No other fate seemed to be before him but that, and he told himself that after all he had sold his life cheaply. ”Found dead on the Scotch moors,” would be the verdict about him.

What would the world say? What would his golden-haired darling say when she heard that he was dead?

As the hot tears blinded his eyes--tears for Madaline, not for himself--a light suddenly flashed into them, and he found himself quite close to the window of a house. With a deep-drawn, bitter sob, he whispered to himself that he was saved. He had just strength enough to knock at the door; and when it was opened he fell across the threshold, too faint and exhausted to speak, a sudden darkness before his eyes.

When he had recovered a little, he found that several gentlemen were gathered around him, and that one of them was holding a flask of whisky to his lips.

”That was a narrow escape,” said a cheery, musical voice. ”How long have you been on foot?”

”Since eight this morning,” he replied.

”And now it is nearly eight at night! Well, you may thank Heaven for preserving your life.”

Lord Arleigh turned away with a sigh. How little could any one guess what life meant for him--life spent without love--love--without Madaline!

”I have known several lose their lives in this way,” continued the same voice. ”Only last year poor Charley Hartigan was caught in a similar storm, and he lay for four days dead before he was found. This gentleman has been fortunate.”

Lord Arleigh roused himself and looked around. He found himself the center of observation. The room in which he was lying was large and well furnished, and from the odor of tobacco it was plainly used as a smoking-room.

Over him leaned a tall, handsome man, whose hair was slightly tinged with gray.

”I think,” he said, ”you are my neighbor, Lord Arleigh? I have often seen you on the moors.”

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