CHAPTER IX.

_THE NEST IS EMPTY._

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the year On the earth, her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying.

One evening--it must have been in the month of November, when the days had grown short and the nights long, when the autumn winds whistled bleakly and the waves were given to lashing the shore--a young girl sat alone at the window of a room which only the red fire and flickering twilight redeemed from total darkness. She was looking out, gazing with dreamy eyes that saw very little of that upon which they were apparently fixed, at the desolation of the world that lay outside. And yet that desolation was writing its impress on her brain, giving to the inner life the images of dreary hopelessness that belonged for the moment to the outer.

The young girl scarcely saw the leafless giants shivering in their nakedness, or the leaden clouds driving restlessly over the sky, or the dark sea moaning, plunging like a mighty thing tied down--a power compelled by a higher power to miserable inaction; yet these things were with and around her; they helped to call that deep look into her eyes, to cause the impatient sigh that escaped her now and then. Inside, there was nothing to disturb her meditation. In the room and in the house was an utter stillness. It was the stillness of watchers engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with man's last and darkest foe. For that struggle had been going on in the little house during three or four long days and nights, and now, at last, a lull had come. The patient slept.

Poor Adele! It could scarcely be matter for wonder that her cheek looked pale and her blue eyes deep, that impatient sighs broke from her, that she was ready to sympathize with the gray desolation of a winter night. For Adele had been passing through a time of anxiety such as she had never before experienced.

Margaret dying, Arthur gone--no word, no line to let them know the fate of the wanderers--no possibility of being able to give the sufferer the news for which her soul was craving--nothing in all the here and hereafter but vague uncertainty, but cruel delay.

And Adele, in the bitterness of her spirit, had begun to doubt about everything. It had been so hard to watch the patient sufferer, to know that in any moment she might be the prey of death--that the pure, noble life, worn away by sorrow, might pass into the invisible without one gleam of light to cheer it on its progress; it had been so hard to listen in the sombre light of the sick room to the passionate ravings of the faithful wife, and to realize the utter impossibility of bringing her that for want of which her life was waning.

These things preyed upon Adele's mind. In the darkness and solitude, in the suspension of immediate anxiety, her heart sank, her spirit began with itself humanity's dreary questioning.

Everywhere, everywhere--in the angry cries of the young child, in the quiet sorrow of those of riper years, in the patient sadness of the aged, in the pallor of young faces--_it_ can be read--the why that rises evermore to Heaven, the great mystery of human woe. Shall it be answered one day? Ah, who can doubt it? Else were we wretched beyond compare.

The _why_ was in Adele's heart that evening, welling up from its innermost depths, proving itself too strong and terrible for her young brain to fathom. And still she sat there, her arms folded and her pale face looking seaward, thinking, thinking.

Once or twice she turned to look at her companion. Margaret was on the sofa. For the first time since that attack of brain-fever which had so terrified her devoted nurses she was dressed, and her dress was of the soft, pale material which Maurice loved.

They had been afraid of the fatigue, for Margaret was very ill. Emotion, anxiety, suspense had told upon her to such a degree that at last her life had been despaired of.

For three days her mind had been wandering. Such strange, pathetic wandering it was that often and often tears had poured down the cheeks of those who watched over her. But early in this evening her senses seemed suddenly to return. There came a light into her eyes; she sat up and looked round her. And then she insisted upon being dressed and taken into the little parlor. They could not refuse her, though the old woman shook her head ominously. "It's well to be seen," she whispered to Adele, "what the end of it a' will be. Puir leddie!" and she wiped her eyes, "the sair heart hae dune it. Humor her bit fancies, bairnie; 'twill be the same, ony gait."

Weeping in spite of herself, Adele obeyed the old nurse. They dressed Margaret with minute care, combed the waving hair--short now, alas!--from her white forehead, put on her the trailing lavender-colored dress and the pretty lace ruffles, wrapped the Indian scarf round her shoulders, and laid her down, exhausted but happy, on the parlor sofa.

She thanked them with her gentle smile, gave a sigh of intense contentment; then, after a few moments, fell into a quiet, healthy sleep.

It was this sleep which Adele had been watching in the dark room until, so quiet and peaceful had been the sleeper's face, the tension on her watcher's nerves was partially relaxed. She turned from that earnest gazing at the pale face, so beautiful in its pure outlines, to look at the outside world--to think and dream and hope. For in the heart of the young hope is ever rampant. It is only when years of experience have shown hope's futility that the radiant companion forsakes the soul. Forsakes! Ah, in thousands of instances scarcely forsakes--rather takes a higher ground, shows a larger prospect. In the dreariness of wintry age hope is still busy, gilding not the transitory _here_, but the lasting beyond.

Adele had not reached that stage of experience. Her young heart, though ready at times to look forward even to that shadowy beyond, was yet very busy with the _here_, the sweet earthly happiness which all young humanity is earnestly craving.

That evening there seemed very little to feed her persistent hopefulness. Another day and yet another, with no line from Arthur, the consciousness of his devotion, of his thoughtful affection, making his silence the more strange and ominous; winter in its dreary desolation looking in at her from sea and land, telling loudly of the difficulty--even perhaps the danger--of travelling; the life of her friend waning, passing in its miserable famine of all that makes a woman's joy. These were the gloomy thoughts with which the hopefulness of the young soul struggled that evening.

For a few moments they overpowered her. In a dark phalanx rose before her mind tales of sorrow and wrong; pallid faces passed her by, tones of bitter misery rang in her ears. She covered her face with her hands. "They are the many," she cried, "the great multitude! Why should any think to be happy? God help us! for this is a dreary world." The words were spoken half aloud, for in the momentary despair she had forgotten everything but this--the aching of her own heart, the sadness of a hope-forsaken world.

She was aroused by a slight rustling among the leaves outside.

The house was very solitary, and the lonely women had more than once experienced that nervous terror which shudders at a sound and sees an intruder in every shadow. However, they kept nothing of great value in the house, and they had hitherto had no real cause for uneasiness. But Adele in all her night-terrors had never heard anything so meaning as this stealthy rustling among the branches. She leaped to her feet and peered out into the night. This time she had not been deceived. At the gate there was a vision of fluttering garments. Adele thought she recognized the form that was passing out into the night. With blanched face and trembling limbs she flew, rather than ran, across the room. It was almost too dark to see, but feeling on hands and knees the young girl discovered, to her horror, that the sofa was empty. Those fluttering garments were Margaret's. An access of fever had come on. In its delirium she had rushed out to meet certain death in the cold and desolate night.

For a moment Adele was almost paralyzed by this new misfortune--fruit, as she told herself bitterly, of her own carelessness; then gathering her wits rapidly together, she threw a shawl round her head and rushed out in pursuit of the fugitive. She did not even wait to let the landlady and the old nurse know of their patient's flight. Time was the great consideration. Margaret might be stopped and brought back before any serious mischief should have happened.

And thus it came about that the two elder women, who were in the lower part of the house enjoying a cup of tea and a chat, in the pleasant relaxation of that anxiety which had been oppressing them all, knew nothing whatever of the strange commotion, of the mysterious flight of the two younger, for whose safety either of them would have staked her life.

The little parlor was deserted, the red fire flickered and waned, the door of the house stood open, through the dark hall the wind whistled and shrieked; while all the time, outside in the darkness, by the shores of the moaning sea, life and death, reason and madness, love and folly were carrying on their fierce, impatient strife.

* * * * *

Had Adele waited for one more moment, she might have been startled by another sound. Scarcely had she left the little house, wild with anxiety, to discover and bring back her friend, before there came from the direction opposite to that she had taken the sound of horses' hoofs that echoed through the silent night.

For this was what had been happening in the mean time. A carriage had been driving as rapidly as a very poor horse could take it in the direction of the cottage. Inside it were a young man and a child, neither of whom spoke a word for the intensity of their outlook into the night.

A horseman rode beside them, and at times it seemed as if his impatience could scarcely be restrained, as if it were impossible for him to suit himself to the slow movement of the carriage.

There was a cry at last from the child, which the horseman heard. He half stopped and bent over her, then rose again erect and vigorous, for the little hand had pointed out his goal, and the dark spot, still in the distance, but faintly showing against the background of sea by the solitary lamp that shone before it, was the shrine that held his treasure. A moment, and Maurice Grey was tearing wildly along the road. Would that faint light ever grow nearer? Maurice was wont to say in after years that those minutes spent in rushing through the darkness were the longest he had ever known.

But the longest minutes have an end. The panting horse was drawn up at last before the solitary lamp. Blindly and madly, not thinking of what might become of it, Maurice threw himself from his saddle, burst open the little garden-gate, and trying, but in vain, to steady his trembling nerves, walked up the path.

But as he looked at the cottage his fierce pace slackened, and a sudden horror seized him, for in its dreary solitude it looked like death.

Maurice stopped for a moment. The heart of the strong man, the heart that had borne so much, beat violently. He thought he must have fallen to the ground, but gathering himself together he pressed forward, trying to reassure his coward heart.

"They are in the back part of the house, of course," he muttered. The door of the cottage stood wide open. "Strange," he thought, "on so cold a night!"

Noiselessly the husband, who was a stranger in his wife's house, passed into the little hall, and still that sickening silence, that dreariness of solitude, met him. A faint light glimmered from the remnants of the parlor-fire. He peered into the room; it was dark and seemingly empty. Maurice struck a match and looked round him. The red ashes, the position of the chairs, the tumbled covers, the crushed sofa pillow, all told of recent occupation; and indeed the two fugitives could scarcely have gone many yards from the house. As he gazed the haggard face relaxed. Crossing to the sofa, he stooped and pressed his lips to the pillow, for something told him that Margaret's head had been there. But his match died down; he was left again in darkness.

"Was anything stirring," he asked himself, "in this house of death? Where was she the traces of whose presence he was finding in the deserted room?"

He decided to remain there for a moment. It could not but be that before many moments should pass the music of her voice would meet his ears, and then he could discover himself. But waiting met with the same fate as searching. Not a sound, not a breath broke the stillness. It was a strange coincidence. In the very room, by the very spot where the deserted wife, the bereaved mother had thrown herself down, almost lost, even to herself, in her anguish, he stood, he waited, his heart sinking with vague dread, his spirit fainting in its sickening suspense, the man who had deserted her, the husband who had misunderstood, who had lightly judged her.

The first sound which met Maurice's ear was the rattling of the wheels that announced the approach of his companions. He rose and went to the door of the room. Surely this new sound would be heard. In the little hall, on the narrow staircase, he might catch the fluttering of her dress. Before she knew of his coming he might clasp her in his arms.

As the little Laura sprang from the carriage, and danced rather than walked along the path, up the steps, through the hall, the driver rang the outside bell with some violence, and this at last proved effectual. Maurice's hungry ears detected movement, but it came from below. There was the sound of chairs being pushed back, of steps on the lower passages and stairs.

The fact was this: Jane and the old nurse, worn out by nursing and anxiety, having ascertained that Margaret was sleeping calmly, had allowed themselves to be beguiled by the pleasant fumes of tea and the kindly warmth of the kitchen fire into giving way themselves. During Margaret's flight and Adele's pursuit, during the arrival of Margaret's husband and the subsequent drawing up of the carriage, they had been sleeping, one on each side of the kitchen fire.

Jane was the first to be aroused--the first, that is to say, to gain full possession of her senses, for the violent ringing of the outside bell had startled the old woman so much that at first she scarcely knew where she was. Jane got up at once, straightened her sprightly figure, smoothed her hair and apron and struck a light. "Who in the world may it be?" she muttered indignantly: "I'd be bound it's one of them boys. The mistress just gone off too, and frightening her out of her wits. Them sort hasn't got a spark of feeling about them."

She walked leisurely up the stairs with her candle, and opened the door that led into the hall. She had scarcely done so before a blast of wind sweeping through the hall put it out. In the next moment her arm was seized, she was dragged into the semi-light outside and confronted with Maurice's fierce eyes. For while Jane was preparing herself to answer the importunate bell the child had been up and down; she had opened the door of the different rooms, all well known to her; she had come down trembling and weeping to say that they were dark and empty, and where--where was mamma?

There was reproach in the wailing cry; in her rapid journey, in her enforced separation from L'Estrange, in her weariness, in her childish sorrow, this had been the one consolation: at the end of it she should see her mother, she should rest in her arms. And now, when the end had come, when the home so intensely longed for had been found, the promised remained unfulfilled.

The blow to Laura was all the more cruel that it was utterly unexpected. No sad forebodings had crossed _her_ young mind. She had pictured the little parlor and the lighted lamp and her mother's gentle face and open arms, and then the rest in those arms, the telling out of her pent-up woes.

The cottage had been found, but within it was only empty darkness. Laura threw herself down on the sofa, and her wailing cry reached the ears of her father as he dragged the landlady out into the light: "Mamma has gone, and mon pere is dead." That and his own disappointment made him almost mad for the moment. Seizing Jane by the shoulder, he shook her roughly as he looked down into her white face: "What have you done with her, woman? Speak, or by Heaven I will make you!"