Chapter 34

THE AGENT'S REPORT.

On the south coast of Hampshire there is a little village which looks toward the Isle of Wight. It consists of a single street, and in front is a spacious beach which extends for miles. It is a charming place for those who love seclusion to pass the summer months in, for the view is unsurpassed, and the chances for boating or yachting excellent. The village inn is comfortable, and has not yet been demoralized by the influx of wealthy strangers, while there are numerous houses where visitors may secure quiet accommodations and a large share of comfort.

It was about six weeks after the disappearance of Hilda, and about a fortnight after Zillah's departure in search of her, that a man drove into this village from Southampton up to a house which was at the extreme eastern end, and inquired for Miss Davis. He was asked to come in; and after waiting for a few minutes in the snug parlor, a lady entered. The slender and elegant figure, the beautiful features, and well-bred air of this lady, need not be again described to those who have already become acquainted with Miss Krieff. Nor need Gualtier's personal appearance be recounted once more to those who have already a sufficient acquaintance with his physiognomy.

She shook hands with him in silence, and then, taking a chair and motioning him to another, she sat for some time looking at him. At length she uttered one single word:

"Well?"

"It's done," said Gualtier, solemnly. "It's all over."

Hilda caught her breath--giving utterance to what seemed something between a sob and a sigh, but she soon recovered herself.

Gualtier was sitting near to her. He leaned forward as Hilda sat in silence, apparently overcome by his intelligence, and in a low whisper he said:

"Do you not feel inclined to take a walk somewhere?"

Hilda said nothing, but, rising, she went up stairs, and in a few minutes returned dressed for a walk. The two then set out, and Hilda led the way to the beach. Along the beach they walked for a long distance, until at length they came to a place which was remote from any human habitation. Behind was the open country, before them the sea, whose surf came rolling in in long, low swells, and on either side lay the beach. Here they sat down on some rocks that rose above the sand, and for some time said nothing. Hilda was the first to speak. Before saying any thing, however, she looked all around, as though to assure herself that they were out of the reach of all listeners. Then she spoke, in a slow, measured voice:

"Is _she_ gone, then?"

"She is," said Gualtier.

There was another long silence. What Hilda's feelings were could not be told by her face. To outward appearance she was calm and unmoved, and perhaps she felt so in her heart. It was possible that the thought of Zillah's death did not make her heart beat faster by one throb, or give her one single approach to a pang of remorse. Her silence might have been merely the meditation of one who, having completed one part of a plan, was busy thinking about the completion of the remainder. And yet, on the other hand, it may have been something more than this. Zillah in life was hateful, but Zillah dead was another thing; and if she had any softness, or any capacity for remorse, it might well have made itself manifest at such a time. Gualtier sat looking at her in silence, waiting for her to speak again, attending on her wishes as usual; for this man, who could be so merciless to others, in her presence resigned all his will to hers, and seemed to be only anxious to do her pleasure, whatever it might be.

"Tell me about it," said Hilda at length, without moving, and still keeping her eyes fixed abstractedly on the sea.

Gualtier then began with his visit to Zillah at Tenby. He spoke of Zillah's joy at getting the letter, and her eager desire to be once more with her friend, and so went on till the time of their arrival at Marseilles. He told how Zillah all the way could talk of nothing else than Hilda; of her feverish anxiety to travel as fast as possible; of her fearful anticipations that Hilda might have a relapse, and that after all she might be too late; how excited she grew, and how despairing, when she was told that the steamers had stopped running, and how eagerly she accepted his proposal to go on in a yacht. The story of such affectionate devotion might have moved even the hardest heart, but Hilda gave no sign of any feeling whatever. She sat motionless--listening, but saying nothing. Whether Gualtier himself was trying to test her feelings by telling so piteous a story, or whether some remorse of his own, and some compassion for so loving a heart, still lingering within him, forced him to tell his story in this way, can not be known. Whatever his motives were, no effect was produced on the listener, as far as outward signs were concerned.

"With Mathilde," said he, "I had some difficulty. She was very unwilling to leave her mistress at such a time to make a voyage alone, but she was a timid creature, and I was able to work upon her fears. I told her that her mistress had committed a crime against the English laws in running away and living under an assumed name; that her husband was now in England, and would certainly pursue his wife, have her arrested, and punish severely all who had aided or abetted her. This terrified the silly creature greatly; and then, by the offer of a handsome sum and the promise of getting her a good situation, I soothed her fears and gained her consent to desert her mistress. She is now in London, and has already gained a new situation."

"Where?" said Hilda, abruptly.

"In Highgate Seminary, the place that I was connected with formerly. She is teacher of French, on a good salary."

"Is that safe?" said Hilda, after some thought.

"Why not?"

"She might give trouble."

"Oh no. Her situation is a good one, and she need never leave it."

"I can scarcely see how she can retain it long; she may be turned out, and then--we may see something of her."

"You forget that I am aware of her movements, and can easily put a stop to any efforts of that kind."

"Still I should be better satisfied if she were in France--or somewhere."

"Should you? Then I can get her a place in France, where you will never hear of her again."

Hilda was silent.

"My plan about the yacht," said Gualtier, "was made before I left London. I said nothing to you about it, for I thought it might not succeed. The chief difficulty was to obtain men devoted to my interests. I made a journey to Marseilles first, and found out that there were several vessels of different sizes for sale. The yacht was the best and most suitable for our purposes, and, fortunately, it remained unsold till I had reached Marseilles again with _her_. I obtained the men in London. It was with some difficulty, for it was not merely common ruffians that I wanted, but seamen who could sail a vessel, and at the same time be willing to take part in the act which I contemplated. I told them that all which was required of them was to sail for two days or so, and then leave the vessel. I think they imagined it was a plan to make money by insuring the vessel and then deserting her. Such things are often done. I had to pay the rascals heavily; but I was not particular, and, fortunately, they all turned out to be of the right sort, except one--but no matter about him."

"Except one!" said Hilda. "What do you mean by that?"

"I will explain after a while," said Gualtier.

"If she had not been so innocent," said Gualtier, "I do not see how my plan could have succeeded. But she knew nothing. She didn't even know enough to make inquiries herself. She accepted all that I said with the most implicit trust, and believed it all as though it were Gospel. It was, therefore, the easiest thing in the world to manage her. Her only idea was to get to you."

Gualtier paused for a moment.

"Go on," said Hilda, coldly.

"Well, all the preparations were made, and the day came. Mathilde had left. _She_ did not seem to feel the desertion much. She said nothing at all to me about the loss of her maid, although after three or four years of service it must have been galling to her to lose her maid so abruptly, and to get such a letter as that silly thing wrote at my dictation. She came on board, and seemed very much satisfied with all the arrangements. I had done every thing that I could think of to make it pleasant for her--on the same principle, I suppose," he added, dryly, "that they have in jails--where they are sure to give a good breakfast to a poor devil on the morning of his execution."

"You may as well omit allusions of that sort," said Hilda, sternly.

Gualtier made no observation, but proceeded with his narrative.

"We sailed for two days, and, at length, came to within about fifty miles of Leghorn. During all that time she had been cheerful, and was much on deck. She tried to read, but did not seem able to do so. She seemed to be involved in thought, as a general thing; and, by the occasional questions which she asked, I saw that all her thoughts were about you and Naples. So passed the two days, and the second night came."

Gualtier paused.

Hilda sat motionless, without saying a word. Gualtier himself seemed reluctant to go on; but he had to conclude his narrative, and so he forced himself to proceed.

"It was midnight"--he went on, in a very low voice--"it was exceedingly dark. The day had been fine, but the sky was now all overclouded. The sea, however, was comparatively smooth, and every thing was favorable to the undertaking. The boat was all ready. It was a good-sized boat, which we had towed behind us. I had prepared a mast and a sail, and had put some provisions in the locker. The men were all expecting--"

"Never mind your preparations," exclaimed Hilda, fiercely. "Omit all that--go on, and don't kill me with your long preliminaries."

"If you had such a story to tell," said Gualtier, humbly, "you would be glad to take refuge for a little while in preliminaries."

Hilda said nothing.

"It was midnight," said Gualtier, resuming his story once more, and speaking with perceptible agitation in the tones of his voice--"it was midnight, and intensely dark. The men were at the bow, waiting. All was ready. In the cabin all had been still for some time. Her lights had been put out an hour previously--"

"Well?" said Hilda, with feverish impatience, as he again hesitated.

"Well," said Gualtier, rousing himself with a start from a momentary abstraction into which he had fallen--"the first thing I did was to go down into the hold with some augers, and bore holes through the vessel's bottom."

Another silence followed.

"_Some_ augers," said Hilda, after a time. "Did you need more than one?"

"One might break."

"Did any one go with you?" she persisted.

"Yes--one of the men--the greatest ruffian of the lot. 'Black Bill,' he was called. I've got something to tell you about him. I took him down to help me, for I was afraid that I might not make a sure thing of it. Between us we did the job. The water began to rush in through half a dozen holes, which we succeeded in making, and we got out on deck as the yacht was rapidly filling."

Again Gualtier paused for some time.

"Why do you hesitate so?" asked Hilda, quite calmly.

Gualtier looked at her for a moment, with something like surprise in his face; but without making any reply, he went on:

"I hurried into the cabin and listened. There was no sound. I put my ear close to the inner door. All was utterly and perfectly still. She was evidently sleeping. I then hurried out and ordered the men into the boat. Before embarking myself I went back to the hold, and reached my hands down. I felt the water. It was within less than three feet of the deck. It had filled very rapidly. I then went on board the boat, unfastened the line, and we pulled away, steering east, as nearly as possible toward Leghorn. We had rowed for about half an hour, when I recollected that I ought to have locked the cabin door. But it was too late to return. We could never have found the schooner if we had tried. The night was intensely dark. Besides, by that time the schooner--_was at the bottom of the sea_."

A long silence followed. Hilda looked steadily out on the water, and Gualtier watched her with hungry eyes. At last, as though she felt his eyes upon her, she turned and looked at him. A great change had come over her face. It was fixed and rigid and haggard--her eyes had something in them that was awful. Her lips were white--her face was ashen. She tried to speak, but at first no sound escaped. At last she spoke in a hoarse voice utterly unlike her own.

"_She_ is gone, then."

"_For evermore_!" said Gualtier.

Hilda turned her stony face once more toward the sea, while Gualtier looked all around, and then turned his gaze back to this woman for whom he had done so much.

"After a while"--he began once more, in a slow, dull voice--"the wind came up, and we hoisted sail. We went on our way rapidly, and by the middle of the following day we arrived at Leghorn. I paid the men off and dismissed them. I myself came back to London immediately, over the Alps, through Germany. I thought it best to avoid Marseilles. I do not know what the men did with themselves; but I think that they would have made some trouble for me if I had not hurried away. Black Bill said as much when I was paying them. He said that when he made the bargain he thought it was only some 'bloody insurance business,' and, if he had known what it was to have been, he would have made a different bargain. As it was, he swore I ought to double the amount I had promised. I refused, and we parted with some high words--he vowing vengeance, and I saying nothing."

"Ah!" said Hilda, who had succeeded in recovering something of her ordinary calm, "that was foolish in you--you ought to have satisfied their demands."

"I have thought so since."

"They may create trouble. You should have stopped their mouths."

"That is the very thing I wished to do; but I was afraid of being too lavish, for fear that they would suspect the importance of the thing. I thought if I appeared mean and stingy and poor they might conclude that I was some very ordinary person, and that the affair was of a very ordinary kind--concerning very common people. If they suspected the true nature of the case they would be sure to inform the police. As it is, they will hold their tongues; or, at the worst, they will try and track me."

"Track you?" said Hilda, who was struck by something in Gualtier's tone.

"Yes; the fact is--I suppose I ought to tell you--I have been tracked all the way from Leghorn."

"By whom?"

"Black Bill--I don't know how he managed it, but he has certainly kept on my track. I saw him at Brieg, in Switzerland, first; next I saw him in the railway station at Strasbourg; and yesterday I saw him in London, standing opposite the door of my lodgings, as I was leaving for this place."

"That looks bad," said Hilda, seriously.

"He is determined to find out what this business is, and so he watches me. He doesn't threaten, he doesn't demand money--he is simply watching. His game is a deep one."

"Do you suppose that the others are with him?"

"Not at all. I think he is trying to work this up for himself."

"It is bad," said Hilda. "How do you know that he is not in this village?"

"As to that, it is quite impossible--and I never expect to see him again, in fact."

"Why not?"

"Because I have thrown him off the track completely. While I was going straight to London it was easy for him to follow--especially as I did not care to dodge him on the continent; but now, if he ever catches sight of me again he is much deeper than I take him to be."

"But perhaps he has followed you here."

"That is impossible," said Gualtier, confidently. "My mode of getting away from London was peculiar. As soon as I saw him opposite my lodgings my mind was made up; so I took the train for Bristol, and went about forty miles, when I got out and came back; then I drove to the Great Northern Station immediately, went north about twenty miles, and came back; after this I took the Southampton train, and came down last night. It would be rather difficult for one man to follow another on such a journey. As to my lodgings, I do not intend to go back. He will probably inquire, and find that I have left all my things there, and I dare say he will watch that place for the next six months at least, waiting for my return. And so I think he may be considered as finally disposed of."

"You do not intend to send for your things, then?"

"No. There are articles there of considerable value; but I will let them all go--it will be taken as a proof that I am dead. My friend Black Bill will hear of this, and fall in with that opinion. I may also arrange a 'distressing casualty' paragraph to insert in the papers for his benefit."

Hilda now relapsed into silence once more, and seemed to lose herself in a fit of abstraction so profound that she was conscious of nothing around her. Gualtier sat regarding her silently, and wondering whither her thoughts were tending. A long time passed. The surf was rolling on the shore, the wind was blowing lightly and gently over the sea; afar the blue water was dotted with innumerable sails; there were ships passing in all directions, and steamers of all sizes leaving behind them great trails of smoke.

Over two hours had passed since they first sat down here, and now, at length, the tide, which had all the while been rising, began to approach them, until at last the first advance waves came within a few inches of Hilda's feet. She did not notice it; but this occurrence gave Gualtier a chance to interrupt her meditations.

"The tide is rising," said he, abruptly; "the next wave will be up to us. We had better move." It was with a start that Hilda roused herself. Then she rose slowly, and walked up the beach with Gualtier.

"I should like very much to know," said he, at length, in an insinuating voice, "if there is any thing more that I can do just now."

"I have been thinking," said Hilda, without hesitation, "of my next course of action, and I have decided to go back to Chetwynde at once."

"To Chetwynde!"

"Yes, and to-morrow morning."

"To-morrow!"

"There is no cause for delay," said Hilda. "The time has at last come when I can act."

"To Chetwynde!" repeated Gualtier. "I can scarcely understand your purpose."

"Perhaps not," said Hilda, dryly; "it is one that need not be explained, for it will not fail to reveal itself in the course of time under any circumstances."

"But you have some ostensible purpose for going there. You can not go there merely to take up your abode on the old footing."

"I do not intend to do that," was the cool response. "You may be sure that I have a purpose. I am going to make certain very necessary arrangements for the advent of Lady Chetwynde."

"Lady Chetwynde!" repeated Gualtier, with a kind of gasp.

"Yes," said Hilda, who by this time had recovered all her usual self-control, and exhibited all her old force of character, her daring, and her coolness, which had long ago given her such an ascendency over Gualtier. "Yes," she repeated, quietly returning the other's look of amazement, "and why should I not? Lady Chetwynde has been absent for her health. Is it not natural that she should send me to make preparations for her return to her own home? She prefers it to Pomeroy."

"Good God!" said Gualtier, quite forgetting himself, as a thought struck him which filled him with bewilderment. Could he fathom her purpose? Was the idea that occurred to him in very deed the one which was in her mind? Could it be? And was it for this that he had labored?

"Is Lord Chetwynde coming home?" he asked at length, as Hilda looked at him with a strange expression.

"Lord Chetwynde? I should say, most certainly not."

"Do you know for certain?"

"No. I have narrowly watched the papers, but have found out nothing, nor have any letters come which could tell me; but I have reasons for supposing that the very last thing that Lord Chetwynde would think of doing would be to come home."

"Why do you suppose that? Is there not his rank, his position, and his wealth?"

"Yes; but the correspondence between him and Lady Chetwynde has for years been of so very peculiar a character--that is, at least, on Lady Chetwynde's part--that the very fact of her being in England would, to a man of his character, be sufficient, I should think, to keep him away forever. And therefore I think that Lord Chetwynde will endure his grief about his father, and perhaps overcome it, in the Indian residency to which he was lately appointed. Perhaps he may end his days there--who can tell? If he should, it would be too much to expect that Lady Chetwynde would take it very much to heart."

"But it seems to me, in spite of all that you have said, that nine men out of ten would come home. They could be much happier in England, and the things of which you have spoken would not necessarily give trouble."

"That is very true; but, at the same time, Lord Chetwynde, in my opinion, happens to be that tenth man who would not come home; for, if he did, it would be Lady Chetwynde's money that he would enjoy, and to a man of his nature this would be intolerable--especially as she has been diligently taunting him with the fact that he has cheated her for the last five years."

Gualtier heard this with fresh surprise.

"I did not know before that there had been so very peculiar a correspondence," said he.

"I think that it will decide him to stay in India."

"But suppose, in spite of all this, that he should come home."

"That is a fact which should never be lost sight of," said Hilda, very gravely--"nor is it ever lost sight of; one must be prepared to encounter such a thing as that."

"But how?"

"Oh, there are various ways," said Hilda.

"He can be avoided, shunned, fled from," said Gualtier, "but how can he be encountered?"

"If he does come," said Hilda, "he will be neither avoided nor shunned. He will be most assuredly encountered--and that, too, _face to face_!"

Gualtier looked at her in fresh perplexity. Not yet had he fathomed the full depth of Hilda's deep design.