"My dear sir," said Naylor, "we are bound to believe that you have good cause enough for what you are doing. We have no wish to interfere impertinently. Only wait till daylight, and wrap yourself in one of our plaids, as the only possible method of carrying out your own intentions; for dead men can't go to Bangor, whithersoever else they may go."
"You really are too kind; but I believe I must accept your offer, under penalty of being called mad;" and Elsley laughed a hollow laugh; for he was by no means sure that he was not mad. He took the proffered wrapper; lay down; and seemed to sleep.
Wynd and Naylor, congratulating themselves on his better mind, lay down also beneath the other plaid, intending to watch him. But worn out with fatigue, they were both fast asleep ere ten minutes had passed.
Elsley had determined to keep himself awake at all risks; and he paid a bitter penalty for so doing; for now that the fury had passed away, his brain began to work freely again, and inflicted torture so exquisite, that he looked back with regret on the unreasoning madness of last night, as a less fearful hell than that of thought; of deliberate, acute recollections, suspicions, trains of argument, which he tried to thrust from him, and yet could not. Who has not known in the still, sleepless hours of night, how dark thoughts will possess the mind with terrors, which seem logical, irrefragable, inevitable?
So it was then with the wretched Elsley; within his mind a whole train of devil's advocates seemed arguing, with triumphant subtlety, the certainty of Lucia's treason; and justifying to him his rage, his hatred, his flight, his desertion of his own children,—if indeed (so far had the devil led him astray) they were his own. At last he could bear it no longer. He would escape to Bangor, and then to London, cross to France, to Italy, and there bury himself amid the forests of the Apennines, or the sunny glens of Calabria. And for a moment the vision of a poet's life in that glorious land brightened his dark imagination. Yes! He would escape thither, and be at peace; and if the world heard of him again, it should be in such a thunder-voice, as those with which Shelley and Byron, from their southern seclusion, had shaken the ungrateful motherland which cast them out. He would escape; and now was the time to do it! For the rain had long since ceased; the dawn was approaching fast; the cloud was thinning from black to pearly grey. Now was his time—were it not for those two men! To be kept, guarded, stopped by them, or by any man! Shameful! intolerable! He had fled hither to be free, and even here he found himself a prisoner. True, they had promised to let him go if he waited till daylight; but perhaps they were deceiving him, as he was deceiving them—why not? They thought him mad. It was a ruse, a stratagem, to keep him quiet awhile, and then bring him back,—"restore him to his afflicted friends." His friends, truly! He would be too cunning for them yet. And even if they meant to let him go, would he accept liberty from them, or any man? No; he was free! He had a right to go; and go he would, that moment!
He raised himself cautiously. The lanthorn had burned to the socket: and he could not see the men, though they were not four yards off; but by their regular and heavy breathing he could tell that they both slept soundly. He slipped from under the plaid; drew off his shoes, for fear of noise among the rocks, and rose. What if he did make a noise? What if they woke, chased him, brought him back by force? Curse the thought!– And gliding close to them, he listened again to their heavy breathing.
How could he prevent their following him?
A horrible, nameless temptation came over him. Every vein in his body throbbed fire; his brain seemed to swell to bursting; and ere he was aware, he found himself feeling about in the darkness for a loose stone.
He could not find one. Thank God that he could not find one! But after that dreadful thought had once crossed his mind, he must flee from that place ere the brand of Cain be on his brow.
With a cunning and activity utterly new to him, he glided away, like a snake; downward over crags and boulders, he knew not how long or how far; all he knew was, that he was going down, down, down, into a dim abyss. There was just light enough to discern the upper surface of a rock within arm's length; beyond that all was blank. He seemed to be hours descending; to be going down miles after miles: and still he reached no level spot. The mountain-side was too steep for him to stand upright, except at moments. It seemed one uniform quarry of smooth broken slate, slipping down for ever beneath his feet.—Whither? He grew giddy, and more giddy; and a horrible fantastic notion seized him, that he had lost his way; that somehow, the precipice had no bottom, no end at all; that he was going down some infinite abyss, into the very depths of the earth, and the molten roots of the mountains, never to reascend. He stopped, trembling, only to slide down again; terrified, he tried to struggle upward: but the shale gave way beneath his feet, and go he must.
What was that noise above his head? A falling stone? Were his enemies in pursuit? Down to the depth of hell rather than that they should take him! He drove his heels into the slippery shale, and rushed forward blindly, springing, slipping, falling, rolling, till he stopped breathless on a jutting slab. And lo! below him, through the thin pearly veil of cloud, a dim world of dark cliffs, blue lakes, grey mountains with their dark heads wrapped in cloud, and the straight vale of Nant Francon, magnified in mist, till it seemed to stretch for hundreds of leagues towards the rosy north-east dawning and the shining sea.
With a wild shout he hurried onward. In five minutes he was clear of the cloud. He reached the foot of that enormous slope, and hurried over rocky ways, till he stopped at the top of a precipice, full six hundred feet above the lonely tarn of Idwal.
Never mind. He knew where he was now; he knew that there was a passage somewhere, for he had once seen one from below. He found it, and almost ran along the boggy shore of Idwal, looking back every now and then at the black wall of the Twll du, in dread lest he should see two moving specks in hot pursuit.
And now he had gained the shore of Ogwen, and the broad coach-road; and down it he strode, running at times, past the roaring cataract, past the enormous cliffs of the Carnedds, past Tin-y-maes, where nothing was stirring but a barking dog; on through the sleeping streets of Bethesda, past the black stairs of the Penrhyn quarry. The huge clicking ant-heap was silent now, save for the roar of Ogwen, as he swirled and bubbled down, rich coffee-brown from last night's rain.
On, past rich woods, past trim cottages, gardens gay with flowers; past rhododendron shrubberies, broad fields of golden stubble, sweet clover, and grey swedes, with Ogwen making music far below. The sun is up at last, and Colonel Pennant's grim slate castle, towering above black woods, glitters metallic in its rays, like Chaucer's house of fame. He stops, to look back once. Far up the vale, eight miles away, beneath a roof of cloud, the pass of Nant Francon gapes high in air between the great jaws of the Carnedd and the Glyder, its cliffs marked with the upright white line of the waterfall. He is clear of the mountains; clear of that cursed place, and all its cursed thoughts! On, past Llandegai and all its rose-clad cottages; past yellow quarrymen walking out to their work, who stare as they pass at his haggard face, drenched clothes, and streaming hair. He does not see them. One fixed thought is in his mind, and that is, the railway station at Bangor.
He is striding through Bangor streets now, beside the summer sea, from which fresh scents of shore-weed greet him. He had rather smell the smoke and gas of the Strand.
The station is shut. He looks at the bill outside. There is no train for full two hours; and he throws himself, worn out with fatigue, upon the doorstep.
Now a new terror seizes him. Has he money enough to reach London? Has he his purse at all? Too dreadful to find himself stopped short, on the very brink of deliverance! A cold perspiration breaks from his forehead, as he feels in every pocket. Yes, his purse is there: but he turns sick as he opens it, and dare hardly look. Hurrah! Five pounds, six—eight! That will take him as far as Paris. He can walk; beg the rest of the way, if need be.
What will he do now? Wander over the town, and gaze vacantly at one little object and another about the house fronts. One thing he will not look at; and that is the bright summer sea, all golden in the sun rays, flecked with gay white sails. From all which is bright and calm, and cheerful, his soul shrinks as from an impertinence; he longs for the lurid gas-light of London, and the roar of the Strand, and the everlasting stream of faces among whom he may wander free, sure that no one will recognise him, the disgraced, the desperate.
The weary hours roll on. Too tired to stand longer, he sits down on the shafts of a cart, and tries not to think. It is not difficult. Body and mind are alike worn out, and his brain seems filled with uniform dull mist.
A shop-door opens in front of him; a boy comes out. He sees bottles inside, and shelves, the look of which he knows too well.
The bottle-boy, whistling, begins to take the shutters down. How often, in Whitbury of old, had Elsley done the same! Half amused, he watched the lad, and wondered how he spent his evenings, and what works he read, and whether he ever thought of writing poetry.
And as he watched, all his past life rose up before him, ever since he served out medicines fifteen years ago;—his wild aspirations, heavy labours, struggles, plans, brief triumphs, long disappointments: and here was what it had all come to,—a failure,—a miserable, shameful failure! Not that he thought of it with repentance, with a single wish that he had done otherwise: but only with disappointed rage. "Yes!" he said bitterly to himself—
"'We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But after come despondency and madness.'
This is the way of the world with all who have nobler feelings in them than will fit into its cold rules. Curse the world! what on earth had I to do with mixing myself up in it, and marrying a fine lady? Fool that I was! I might have known from the first that she could not understand me; that she would go back to her own! Let her go! I will forget her, and the world, and everything—and I know how!"
And springing up, he walked across to the druggist's shop.
Years before, Elsley had tried opium, and found, unhappily for him, that it fed his fancy without inflicting those tortures of indigestion which keep many, happily for them, from its magic snare. He had tried it more than once of late: but Lucia had had a hint of the fact from Thurnall; and in just terror had exacted from him a solemn promise never to touch opium again. Elsley was a man of honour, and the promise had been kept. But now—"I promised her, and therefore I will break my promise! She has broken hers, and I am free!"
And he went in and bought his opium. He took a little on the spot to allay the cravings of hunger. He reserved a full dose for the railway-carriage. It would bridge over the weary gulf of time which lay between him and town.
He took his second-class place at last; not without stares and whispers from those round at the wild figure which was starting for London, without bag or baggage. But as the clerks agreed, "If he was running away from his creditors, it was a shame to stop him. If he was running from the police, they would have the more sport the longer the run. At least it was no business of theirs."
There was one thing more to do, and he did it. He wrote to Campbell a short note.
"If, as I suppose, you expect from me 'the satisfaction of a gentleman,' you will find me at … Adelphi. I am not escaping from you but from the whole world. If, by shooting me you can quicken my escape, you will do me the first and last favour which I am likely to ask from you."
He posted his letter, settled himself in a corner of the carriage, and took his second dose of opium. From that moment he recollected little more. A confused whirl of hedges and woods, rattling stations, screaming and flashing trains, great red towns, white chalk cuttings; while the everlasting roar and rattle of the carriages shaped themselves in his brain into a hundred snatches of old tunes, all full of a strange merriment, as if mocking at his misery, striving to keep him awake and conscious of who and what he was. He closed his eyes and shut out the hateful garish world: but that sound he could not shut out. Too tired to sleep, too tired even to think, he could do nothing but submit to the ridiculous torment; watching in spite of himself every note, as one jig-tune after another was fiddled by all the imps close to his ear, mile after mile, and county after county, for all that weary day, which seemed full seven years long.
At Euston Square the porter called him several times ere he could rouse him. He could hear nothing for awhile but that same imps' melody, even though it had stopped. At last he got out, staring round him, shook himself awake by one strong effort, and hurried away, not knowing whither he went.
Wrapt up in self, he wandered on till dark, slept on a doorstep, and awoke, not knowing at first where he was. Gradually all the horror came back to him, and with the horror the craving for opium wherewith to forget it.
He looked round to see his whereabouts. Surely this must be Golden Square? A sudden thought struck him. He went to a chemist's shop, bought a fresh supply of his poison, and, taking only enough to allay the cravings of his stomach, hurried tottering in the direction of Drury Lane.
CHAPTER XXII.
FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH
Next morning, only Claude and Campbell made their appearance at breakfast.
Frank came in; found that Valencia was not down: and, too excited to eat, went out to walk till she should appear. Neither did Lord Scoutbush come. Where was he?
Ignorant of the whole matter, he had started at four o'clock to fish in the Traeth Mawr; half for fishing's sake, half (as he confessed) to gain time for his puzzled brains before those explanations with Frank Headley, of which he stood in mortal fear.
Mellot and Campbell sat down together to breakfast; but in silence. Claude saw that something had gone very wrong; Campbell ate nothing, and looked nervously out of the window every now and then.
At last Bowie entered with the letters and a message. There were two gentlemen from Pen-y-gwryd must speak with Mr. Mellot immediately.
He went out and found Wynd and Naylor. What they told him we know already. He returned instantly, and met Campbell leaving the room.
"I have news of Vavasour," whispered he. "I have a letter from him.
Bowie, order me a car instantly for Bangor. I am off to London, Claude.
You and Bowie will take care of my things, and send them after me."
"Major Cawmill has only to command," said Bowie, and vanished down the stairs.
"Now, Claude, quick; read that and counsel me. I ought to ask Scoutbush's opinion; but the poor dear fellow is out, you see."
Claude read the note written at Bangor.
"Fight him I will not! I detest the notion: a soldier should never fight a duel. His life is the Queen's, and not his own. And yet if the honour of the family has been compromised by my folly, I must pay the penalty, if Scoutbush thinks it proper."
So said Campbell, who, in the over-sensitiveness of his conscience, had actually worked himself round during the past night into this new fancy, as a chivalrous act of utter self-abasement. The proud self-possession of the man was gone, and nothing but self-distrust and shame remained.
"In the name of all wit and wisdom, what is the meaning of all this?"
"You do not know, then, what passed last night?"
"I? I can only guess that Vavasour has had one of his rages."
"Then you must know," said Campbell with an effort; "for you must explain all to Scoutbush when he returns; and I know no one more fit for the office." And he briefly told him the story.
Mellot was much affected. "The wretched ape! Campbell, your first thought was the true one: you must not fight that cur. After all, it's a farce: you won't fire at him, and he can't hit you—so leave ill alone. Beside, for Scoutbush's sake, her sake, every one's sake, the thing must be hushed up. If the fellow chooses to duck under into the London mire, let him lie there, and forget him!"
"No, Claude; his pardon I must beg, ere I go out to the war: or I shall die with a sin upon my soul."
"My dear, noble creature! if you must go, I go with you. I must see fair play between you and that madman; and give him a piece of my mind, too, while I am about it. He is in my power: or if not quite that, I know one in whose power he is! and to reason he shall be brought."
"No; you must stay here. I cannot trust Scoutbush's head, and these poor dear souls will have no one to look to but you. I can trust you with them, I know. Me you will perhaps never see again."
"You can trust me!" said the affectionate little painter, the tears starting to his eyes, as he wrung Campbell's hand.
"Mind one thing! If that Vavasour shows his teeth, there is a spell will turn him to stone. Use it!"
"Heaven forbid! Let him show his teeth. It is I who am in the wrong. Why should I make him more my enemy than he is?"
"Be it so. Only, if the worst comes to the worst, call him not Elsley Vavasour, but plain John Briggs—and see what follows."
Valencia entered.
"The post has come in! Oh, dear Major Campbell, is there a letter?"
He put the note into her hand in silence. She read it, and darted back to Lucia's room.
"Thank God that she did not see that I was going! One more pang on earth spared!" said Campbell to himself.
Valencia hurried to Lucia's door. She was holding it ajar and looking out with pale face, and wild hungry eyes.—"A letter? Don't be silent or I shall go mad! Tell me the worst! Is he alive?"
"Yes."
She gasped, and staggered against the door-post.
"Where? Why does he not come back to me?" asked she, in a confused, abstracted way.
It was best to tell the truth, and have it over.
"He has gone to London, Lucia. He will think over it all there, and be sorry for it, and then all will be well again."
But Lucia did not hear the end of that sentence. Murmuring to herself, "To London! To London!" she hurried back into the room.
"Clara! Clara! have the children had their breakfast?"
"Yes, ma'am!" says Clara, appearing from the inner room.
"Then help me to pack up, quick! Your master is gone to London on business; and we are to follow him immediately."
And she began bustling about the room.
"My dearest Lucia, you are not fit to travel now!"
"I shall die if I stay here; die if I do nothing! I must find him!" whispered she. "Don't speak loud, or Clara will hear. I can find him, and nobody can but me! Why don't you help me to pack, Valencia?"
"My dearest! but what will Scoutbush say when he comes home, and finds you gone?"
"What right has he to interfere? I am Elsley's wife, am I not? and may follow my husband if I like:" and she went on desperately collecting, not her own things, but Elsley's.
Valencia watched her with tear-brimming eyes; collecting all his papers, counting over his clothes, murmuring to herself that he would want this and that in London. Her sanity seemed failing her, under the fixed idea that she had only to see him, and set all right with, a word.
"I will go and get you some breakfast," said she at last.
"I want none. I am too busy to eat. Why don't you help me?"
Valencia had not the heart to help, believing, as she did, that Lucia's journey would be as bootless as it would be dangerous to her health.
"I will bring you some breakfast, and you must try; then I will help to pack:" and utterly bewildered she went out; and the thought uppermost in her mind was,—"Oh, that I could find Frank Headley?"
Happy was it for Frank's love, paradoxical as it may seem, that it had conquered just at that moment of terrible distress. Valencia's acceptance of him had been hasty, founded rather on sentiment and admiration than on deep affection; and her feeling might have faltered, waned, died away in self-distrust of its own reality, if giddy amusement, if mere easy happiness, had followed it. But now the fire of affliction was branding in the thought of him upon her softened heart.
Living at the utmost strain of her character, Campbell gone, her brother useless, and Lucia and the children depending utterly on her, there was but one to whom she could look for comfort while she needed it most utterly; and happy for her and for her lover that she could go to him.
"Poor Lucia! thank God that I have some one who will never treat me so! who will lift me up and shield me, instead of crushing me!—dear creature!—Oh that I may find him!" And her heart went out after Frank with a gush of tenderness which she had never felt before.
"Is this, then, love?" she asked herself; and she found time to slip into her own room for a moment and arrange her dishevelled hair, ere she entered the breakfast-room.
Frank was there, luckily alone, pacing nervously up and down. He hurried up to her, caught both her hands in his, and gazed into her wan and haggard face with the intensest tenderness and anxiety.
Valencia's eyes looked into the depths of his, passive and confiding, till they failed before the keenness of his gaze, and swam in glittering mist.
"Ah!" thought she; "sorrow is a light price to pay for the feeling of being so loved by such a man!"
"You are tired,—ill? What a night you must have had! Mellot has told me all."
"Oh, my poor sister!" and wildly she poured out to Frank her wrath against Elsley, her inability to comfort Lucia, and all the misery and confusion of the past night.
"This is a sad dawning for the day of my triumph!" thought Frank, who longed to pour out his heart to her on a thousand very different matters: but he was content; it was enough for him that she could tell him all, and confide in him; a truer sign of affection than any selfish love-making; and he asked, and answered, with such tenderness and thoughtfulness for poor Lucia, with such a deep comprehension of Elsley's character, pitying while he blamed, that he won his reward at last.
"Oh! it would he intolerable, if I had not through it all the thought" and blushing crimson, her head drooped on her bosom. She seemed ready to drop with exhaustion.
"Sit down, sit down, or you will fall!" said Frank, leading her to a chair; and as he led her, he whispered with fluttering heart, new to its own happiness, and longing to make assurance sure—"What thought?"
She was silent still; but he felt her hand tremble in his.
"The thought of me?"
She looked up in his face; how beautiful! And in another moment, neither knew how, she was clasped to his bosom.
He covered her face, her hair with kisses: she did not move; from that moment she felt that he was her husband.
"Oh, guide me! counsel me! pray for me!" sobbed she. "I am all alone, and my poor sister, she is going mad, I think, and I have no one to trust but you; and you—you will leave me to go to those dreadful wars; and then, what will become of me? Oh, stay! only a few days!" and holding him convulsively, she answered his kisses with her own.
Frank stood as in a dream, while the room reeled round and vanished; and he was alone for a moment upon earth with her and his great love.
"Tell me," said he, at last, trying to awaken himself to action. "Tell me! Is she really going to seek him?"
"Yes, selfish and forgetful that I am! You must help me! she will go to London, nothing can stop her;—and it will kill her!"
"It may drive her mad to keep her here."
"It will! and that drives me mad also. What can I choose!"
"Follow where God leads. It is she, after all, who must reclaim him.
Leave her in God's hands, and go with her to London."
"But my brother?"
"Mellot or I will see him. Let it be me. Mellot shall go with you to London."
"Oh that you were going!"
"Oh that I were! I will follow, though. Do you think that I can be long away from you?… But I must tell your brother. I had a very different matter on which to speak to him this morning," said he, with a sad smile: "but better as it is. He shall find me, I hope, reasonable and trustworthy in this matter; perhaps enough so to have my Valencia committed to me. Precious jewel! I must learn to be a man now, at least; now that I have you to care for."
"And yet you go and leave me?"
"Valencia! Because God has given us to each other, shall our thank-offering be to shrink cowardly from His work?"
He spoke more sternly than he intended, to awe into obedience rather himself than her; for he felt, poor fellow, his courage failing fast, while he held that treasure in his arms.
She shuddered in silence.
"Forgive me!" he cried; "I was too harsh, Valencia!"
"No!" she cried, looking up at him with a glorious smile. "Scold me! Be harsh to me! It is so delicious now to be reproved by you!" and as she spoke she felt as if she would rather endure torture from that man's hand than bliss from any other. How many strange words of Lucia's that new feeling explained to her; words at which she had once grown angry, as doting weaknesses, unjust and degrading to self-respect. Poor Lucia! She might be able to comfort her now, for she had learnt to sympathise with her by experience the very opposite to hers. Yet there must have been a time when Lucia clung to Elsley as she to Frank. How horrible to have her eyes opened thus!—To be torn and flung away from the bosom where she longed to rest! It could never happen to her. Of course her Frank was true, though all the world were false: but poor Lucia! She must go to her. This was mere selfishness at such a moment.
"You will find Scoutbush, then!"
"This moment. I will order the car now, if you will only eat. You must!"
And he rang the bell, and then made her sit down and eat, almost feeding her with his own hand. That, too, was a new experience; and one so strangely pleasant, that when Bowie entered, and stared solemnly at the pair, she only looked up smiling, though blushing a little.
"Get a car instantly," said she.
"For Mrs. Vavasour, my lady? She has ordered hers already."
"No; for Mr. Headley. He is going to find my lord. Frank, pour me out a cup of tea for Lucia."
Bowie vanished, mystified. "It's no concern of mine; but better tak' up wi' a godly meenister than a godless pawet," said the worthy warrior to himself as he marched down stairs.
"You see that I am asserting our rights already before all the world," said she, looking up.
"I see you are not ashamed of me."
"Ashamed of you?"
"And now I must go to Lucia."
"And to London."
Valencia began to cry like any baby; but rose and carried away the tea in her hand. "Must I go? and before you come back, too?"
"Is she determined to start instantly?"
"I cannot stop her. You see she has ordered the car."
"Then go, my darling! My own! my Valencia! Oh, a thousand things to ask you, and no time to ask them in! I can write?" said Frank, with an inquiring smile.
"Write? Yes; every day,—twice a day. I shall live upon those letters. Good-bye!" And out she went, while Frank sat himself down at the table, and laid his head upon his hands, stupefied with delight, till Bowie entered.
"The car, sir."
"Which? Who?" asked Frank, looking up as from a dream.
"The car, sir."
Frank rose, and walked downstairs abstractedly. Bowie kept close to his side.
"Ye'll pardon me, sir," said he in a low voice; "but I see how it is,– the more blessing for you. Ye'll be pleased, I trust, to take more care of this jewel than others have of that one: or—"
"Or you'll shoot me yourself, Bowie?" said Frank, half amused, half awed, too, by the stern tone of the guardsman. "I'll give you leave to do it if I deserve it"
"It's no my duty, either as a soldier or as a valet. And, indeed, I've that opeenion of you, sir, that I don't think it'll need to be any one's else's duty either."
And so did Mr. Bowie signify his approbation of the new family romance, and went off to assist Mrs. Clara in getting the trunks down stairs.
Clara was in high dudgeon. She had not yet completed her flirtation with Mr. Bowie, and felt it hard to have her one amusement in life snatched out of her hard-worked hands.
"I'm sure I don't know why we're moving. I don't believe it's business. Some of his tantrums, I daresay. I heard her walking up and down the room all last night, I'll swear. Neither she nor Miss Valencia have been to bed. He'll kill her at last, the brute!"
"It's no concern of either of us, that. Have ye got another trunk to bring down?"
"No concern? Just like your hard-heartedness, Mr. Bowie. And as soon as I'm gone, of course you will be flirting with these impudent Welshwomen, in their horrid hats."
"Maybe, yes; maybe, no. But flirting's no marrying, Mrs. Clara."
"True for you, sir! Men were deceivers ever," quoth Clara, and flounced up stairs; while Bowie looked after her with a grim smile, and caught her, when she came down again, long enough to give her a great kiss; the only language which he used in wooing, and that but rarely.
"Dinna fash, lassie. Mind your lady and the poor bairns like a godly handmaiden, and I'll buy the ring when the sawmon fishing's over, and we'll just be married ere I start for the Crimee"
"The sawmon!" cried Clara. "I'll see you turned into a mermaid first, and married to a sawmon!"
"And ye won't do anything o' the kind," said Bowie to himself, and shouldered a valise.
In ten minutes the ladies were packed into the carriage, and away, under Mellot's care. Frank watched Valencia looking back, and smiling through her tears, as they rolled through the village; and then got into his car, and rattled down the southern road to Pont Aberglaslyn, his hand still tingling with the last pressure of Valencia's.