Part 106 (1/2)
No mention had been made of Uncle Luke by the girl, nor yet of Leslie's departure.
”Am I still dreaming?” Madelaine asked herself as she hastily dressed, ”or has some fresh terrible disaster come upon us?”
”Upon _us_,” she said, for the two families seemed so drawn together that one could not suffer without thrilling the other's nerves.
”Louise gone! It is impossible!”
She said that again and again, trying all the while to be cool and think out what were best to be done. She felt that it would be better not to alarm her father by waking him at that early hour, and that she could not arouse her mother without his knowing.
She was not long in deciding.
Uncle Luke had shown during the troubles of the past how he could throw aside his eccentricity and become a useful, helpful counsellor, and it seemed the natural thing to send a message up to him, and beg him to come down. Better still, to save time, she would run up there first.
Liza had not been gone a quarter of an hour before Madelaine was well on her way, after stealing silently out of the house.
The effort to be calm was unavailing, for a wild fit of excitement was growing upon her, and instead of walking up the steep cliff path, she nearly ran.
Would Uncle Luke be at home? He was eccentric and strange in his habits, and perhaps by that time out and away fis.h.i.+ng off some rocky point.
She scanned the rough pier by the harbour, and shuddered as the scene of that horrible night came back. But there was no sign of the old man there, neither could she see him farther away, and feeling hopeful that perhaps she would be in time to catch him, she hurried on, panting. As she turned a corner of the devious way, and came in sight of the cottage, with Leslie's house and mine chimney far up at the back, she stopped short, breathless and wondering, and with a strange reaction at work, suggesting that after all, this was some mythical invention on the part of the servant, for there, stood Duncan Leslie outside Uncle Luke's cottage awaiting her coming.
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE.
HER DEFENDER.
”Miss Van Heldre!”
”Mr Leslie! That woman came to our house this morning to say--Oh, then, it is not true?”
”Yes,” he said slowly; ”it is all true.”
”True that--that you were hurt--that--that--Oh, pray speak! Louise-- Louise!”
”Gone!” said Leslie hoa.r.s.ely, and, sick at heart and suffering, he leaned back against the wall.
”Gone? Louise gone? Gone where?”
Leslie shook his head mournfully, and gazed out to sea.
”Why do you not speak?” cried Madelaine. ”Can you not see how your silence troubles me? Mr Leslie, what is the matter? You were found hurt--and Louise--gone! What does it mean?”
He shook his head again.
”Where is Mr Luke Vine?” cried Madelaine, turning from him quickly.
”At the house.”
”Then I have come here for nothing,” she cried agitatedly. ”Mr Leslie, pray, pray speak.”