• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"To Homewood, so late!"

"Exactly. It will not be late there--or if it is, anxious hearts make light sleepers."

His shoulders rose a trifle, but he bought the ticket.

VIII

"PHILO! PHILO! PHILO!"

Never have I felt a weirder sensation than when I stepped from the cars on to the solitary platform from which a few hours before I had seen the little nursery-governess depart for New York. The train, soon to disappear in the darkness of the long perspective, was all that gave life and light to the scene, and when it was gone, nothing remained to relieve the gloom or to break the universal stillness save the quiet lap of the water and the moaning of the wind through the trees which climbed the heights to Homewood.

I had determined to enter if possible by way of the private path, though I expected to find it guarded against just such intrusion. In approaching it I was given a full view of the river and thus was in a position to note that the dock and adjoining banks were no longer bright with lanterns in the hands of eager men bending with fixed eyes over the flowing waters. The search which had kept so many busy at this spot for well on to two days had been abandoned; and the darkness seemed doubly dark and the silence doubly oppressive in contrast.

Yet hope spoke in the abandonment; and with renewed spirit and a more than lively courage, I turned toward the little gate through which I had passed twice before that day. As I expected, a silent figure rose up from the shadows to prevent me; but it fell back at the mention of my name and business, thus proving the man to be in the confidence of Mrs. Ocumpaugh or, at the least, in that of Miss Porter.

"I am come for a social chat with the coachman," I explained. "Lights burn late in such extensive stables. Don't worry about me. The people at the house are in sympathy with my investigation."

Thus we stretch the truth at great crises.

"I know you," was the answer. "But keep away from the house. Our orders are imperative to allow no one to approach it again to-night, except with the child in hand or with such news as would gain instant admission."

"Trust me," said I, as I went up the steps.

It was so dark between the hedge-rows that my ascent became mere groping. I had a lantern in my pocket which I had taken from Jupp, but I did not choose to make use of it. I preferred to go on and up, trusting to my instinct to tell me when I had reached a fresh flight of steps.

A gleam of light from Mrs. Carew's upper windows was the first intimation I received that I was at the top of the bank, and in another moment I was opposite the gap in the hedge opening upon her grounds.

For no particular reason that I know of, I here paused and took a long survey of what was, after all, nothing but a cluster of shadows broken here and there by squares of subdued light I felt a vague desire to enter--to see and talk again with the charming woman whose personality had made such an impression upon me, if only to understand the peculiar feelings which those indistinguishable walls awakened, and why such a sense of anticipation should disturb my admiration of this woman and the delight which I had experienced in every accent of her trained and exquisite voice.

I was standing very still and in almost total darkness. The shock, therefore, was great when, in finally making up my mind to move, I became conscious of a presence near me, totally indiscernible and as silent as myself.

Whose?

No watchman, or he would have spoken at the rustle I made stumbling back against the hedge-row. Some marauder, then, or a detective, like myself? I would not waste time in speculating; better to decide the question at once, for the situation was eery, the person, whoever he was, stood so near and so still, and so directly in the way of my advance.

Drawing the lantern from my pocket, I pushed open the slide and flashed the light on the immovable figure before me. The face I beheld staring into mine was one quite unknown to me, but as I took in its expression, my arm gradually fell, and with it the light