Part 10 (1/2)

What if her family had discovered her absence?

The question was a fever to her blood. At the time she had set off from Keswick the chance of that discovery had appeared to her the least of the dangers that she ran, so completely had she been engrossed by the necessity of regaining her letters; and, besides, she had laid her plans carefully, with perfect confidence in the fidelity of the groom. Afterwards, at Wastdale, the hurry of events had obscured her to all speculation on the matter, compelling a concentration of her faculties upon immediate issues. Now, however, she began to see a hundred threatening possibilities.

She had pleaded a headache. What more likely than that her father or her aunt should have come to her room to inquire after her before they went to bed? Her father?--she dismissed him with a moment's reflection. The good man took life and his daughter's ailments easily.

But her aunt! Kate remembered with a s.h.i.+ver that she was a h.o.m.oeopathist. She was bound to have inquired. She could not enter the room, it is true, for Kate had locked the door and held the key safe in her pocket.

She felt in her dress suddenly, half-expecting to find that she had dropped it. It was safe, however, and she experienced a relief; but the relief was only momentary.

For the window of her bedroom opened level on to the garden. A lucky advantage, she had considered it before, as affording an easy egress and return. Now it seemed to her the most vulnerable point in her plan. For if her aunt made inquiries at the door, and received no answer, she had but to step into the garden to solve her perplexities.

A pa.s.sing vision of an old lady in bedroom slippers padding over the gra.s.s with a box of pills failed to distract her. Kate sent her wits abroad on the wings of fear in search of excuses, but they returned to her empty-handed. Her dread was, moreover, accentuated by a retrospect upon the other dangers of that night. Her successful evasion of them only made this last risk loom the larger.

The nearer she drew towards home, the more it overshadowed her. When she crossed the marsh land at the end of the Lake, discovery had already become the probability; by the time she pa.s.sed Lodore, a certainty, and when she topped Castle Hill, just above Keswick town, she strained her eyes towards the water's edge, fully expecting to see every window of their house ablaze with light.

All was in darkness, however, except for one faint glimmer, which Kate guessed came from the stables. The revulsion of feeling which she underwent acted on her like a shock, and she reined up her horse and clung to the saddle, dizzy. In the hollow a clock chimed the half-hour, lifting a silvery encouragement, and she moved on again slowly down the hill. Some twenty yards from the front of the house she dismounted, led the horse into a lane which gave on to the road, crossed a paddock at the back of the garden, and reached the stables, which stood apart from the main building. The light which she had noticed came from the harness-room; she tapped softly on the window-pane and was answered by a low growl, followed by a sharp ”Quiet!”

Immediately afterwards the door was opened cautiously, and the groom Martin appeared and led the horse in quietly. Kate followed him and closed the door.

”What time is it?” she asked, in a whisper.

”Just gone half-past five, Miss.”

”Has any one--I mean, no one has noticed my absence?”

Martin rea.s.sured her, with a touch of patronage in his tone, which a c.o.c.kney deficiency of aspirates made singularly unpalatable. She turned to the collie; he had followed Martin from the harness-room and was wisely superintending the proceedings with his ear c.o.c.ked and his head on one side.

”You brought Charlie in.”

”Yes, Miss! I dursn't leave him in the yard. He mightn't have known your footsteps at once.”

”That was thoughtful of you.” The dog took the compliment to itself after the fas.h.i.+on of its kind, and showed his appreciation by planting his forepaws as high up on her as he could, and stretching itself lazily.

”Thank you very much,” said Kate. ”Good night!” and she hurried across the yard, pursued by a whispered--

”You 're very welcome, Miss, I'm sure.”

A wicket-gate gave her entrance into the garden, and she crept softly to the window of her bedroom, and opened it with a palpitating heart.

Nothing, however, had been disarranged, the room was as she had left it. She did not dare to risk a light, but flung off her clothes quickly in the dark, unlocked the door, and tumbled into bed. For a long time sleep would not come to her in spite of her fatigue. She heard the clock strike six, and then half-past. For now that she herself was safe, her thoughts unconsciously reverted to Gordon. She saw his face again framed in the darkness, as the light fell on it from her lanthorn, and wondered whether he was still on the bridge, looking eastwards down the Pa.s.s. That last cry of his recurred to her.

”Kitty!” The name rang in her ears, stretched out into a threnody. She tried to flee from it, and it pursued her, now swelling into the deep peal of an organ-note, now sinking into a pitiful wail. And it was not merely the cry she heard, but Gordon's voice in it, vibrating with its hopeless misery. For a time it accused her sharply, but with continual repet.i.tion began to lose its meaning. The girl started to murmur the word to herself mechanically, in an undertone of accompaniment.

Finally it became a lullabye, and so hymned her to sleep.

”Kitty!”

Was she destined to hear it all her life, Kate questioned on the borderland of sleep.

”Kitty!”

A hand was laid on her shoulder and she woke with a start. A girl-cousin, one of the intending bridesmaids, was standing by her bedside.