stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words.
“Is it me the flying female wants?” he exclaimed, at last. “You’d better stop, perhaps” he added, to the flyman. “It is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world’s history. She may want me. Very likely I left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and Mr. Talboys has sent this person with it. Perhaps I’d better get out and go and meet her. It’s civil to send my handkerchief.”
Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure, which gained upon him rapidly.
He was rather short sighted, and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was.
“Good Heaven!” he exclaimed, “it’s Miss Talboys.”
It was Miss Talboys, flushed and breathless, with a woolen shawl thrown over her head.
Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw that she was very handsome. She had brown eyes, like George’s, a pale complexion (she had been flushed when she approached him, but the color faded away as she recovered her breath), regular features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. He saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Talboys. There were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster — terribly bright and dry — and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him.
“Miss Talboys,” he said, “what can I— why —”
She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand — she was holding her shawl in the other.
“Oh, let me speak to you,” she cried —“let me speak to you, or I shall go mad. I heard it all. I believe what you believe, and I shall go mad unless I can do something — something toward avenging his death.”
For a few moments Robert Audley was too much bewildered to answer her. Of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her thus.
“Take my arm, Miss Talboys,” he said. “Pray calm yourself. Let us walk a little way back toward the house, and talk quietly. I would not have spoken as I did before you had I known —”
“Had you known that I loved my brother?” she said, quickly. “How should you know that I loved him? How should any one think that I loved him, when I have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof, or a kindly word from his father? How should I dare to betray my love for him in that house when I knew that even a sister’s affection would be turned to his disadvantage? You do not know my father, Mr. Audley. I do. I knew that to intercede for George would have been to ruin his cause. I knew that to leave matters in my father’s hands, and to trust to time, was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again. And I waited — waited patiently, always hoping for the best; for I knew that my father loved his only son. I see your contemptuous smile, Mr. Audley, and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for his children — no very warm attachment perhaps, for he has always ruled his life by the strict law of duty. Stop,” she said, suddenly, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking back through the straight avenue of pines; “I ran out of the house by the back way. Papa must not see me talking to you, Mr. Audley, and he must not see the fly standing at the gate. Will you go into the high-road and tell the man to drive on a little way? I will come out of the plantation by a little gate further on, and meet you in the road.”
“But you will catch cold, Miss Talboys,” remonstrated Robert, looking at her anxiously, for he saw that she was trembling. “You are shivering now.”
“Not with cold,” she answered. “I am thinking of my brother George. If you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend, do what I ask you, Mr. Audley. I must speak to you — I must speak to you — calmly, if I can.”
She put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts, and then pointed to the gate. Robert bowed and left her. He told the man to drive slowly toward the station, and walked on by the side of the tarred fence surrounding Mr. Talboys’ grounds. About a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance he came to a little wooden gate in the fence, and waited at it for Miss Talboys.
She joined him presently, with her shawl still over her head, and her eyes still bright and tearless.
“Will you walk with me inside the plantation?” she said. “We might be observed on the high-road.”
He bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it behind him.
When she took his offered arm he found that she was still trembling — trembling very violently.
“Pray, pray calm yourself, Miss Talboys,” he said; “I may have been deceived in the opinion which I have formed; I may —”
“No, no, no,” she exclaimed, “you are not deceived. My brother has been murdered. Tell me the name of that woman — the woman whom you suspect of being concerned in his disappearance — in his murder.”
“That I cannot do until —”
“Until when?”
“Until I know that she is guilty.”
“You told my father that you would abandon all idea of discovering the truth — that you would rest satisfied to leave my brother’s fate a horrible mystery never to be solved upon this earth; but you will not do so, Mr. Audley — you will not be false to the memory of your friend. You will see vengeance done upon those who have destroyed him. You will do this, will you not?”
A gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil over Robert Audley’s handsome face.
He remembered what he had said the day before at Southampton:
“A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward, upon the dark road.”
A quarter of an hour before, he had believed that all was over, and that he was released from the dreadful duty of discovering the secret of George’s death. Now this girl, this apparently passionless girl, had found a voice, and was urging him on toward his fate.
“If you knew what misery to me may be involved in discovering the truth, Miss Talboys,” he said, “you would scarcely ask me to pursue this business any farther?”
“But I do ask you,” she answered, with suppressed passion — I do ask you. I ask you to avenge my brother’s untimely death. Will you do so? Yes or no?”
“What if I answer no?”
“Then I will do it myself,” she exclaimed, looking at him with her bright brown eyes. “I myself will follow up the clew to this mystery; I will find this woman — though you refuse to tell me in what part of England my brother disappeared. I will travel from one end of the world to the other to find the secret of his fate, if you refuse to find it for me. I am of age; my own mistress; rich, for I have money left me by one of my aunts; I shall be able to employ those who will help me in my search, and I will make it to their interest to serve me well. Choose between the two alternatives, Mr. Audley. Shall you or I find my brother’s murderer?”
He looked in her face, and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no
