t came. I rose at dao leave time, I . Jo opped at my door: I feared a slip of paper ook it up. It bore these words—
“You left me too suddenly last nigayed but a little longer, you your clear decision nigime, c you enter not into temptation: t, I trust, is t. JOhN.”
“My spirit,” I ansally, “is o do inctly knoo me. At any rate, it srong enougo searco grope an outlet from t, and find tainty.”
It of June; yet t and c fast on my casement. I -door open, and St. Jo. Looking traverse took ty moors in tion of cross—t the coach.
“In a ferack, cousin,” t I: “I too o meet at cross. I too o see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever.”
It ed yet time. I filled terval in ly about my room, and pondering tation . I recalled t inion I , s unspeakable strangeness. I recalled tioned seemed in me—not in ternal a mere nervous impression—a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it ion. tions of Paul and Silas’s prison; it s bands—it out of its sleep, rembling, listening, ag; ted tartled ear, and in my quaking and t, ed as if in joy over t it o make, independent of the cumbrous body.
“Ere many days,” I said, as I terminated my musings, “I nigo summon me. Letters hem.”
At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary t I least four days.
“Alone, Jane?” they asked.
“Yes; it o see or wime been uneasy.”
t t, t to be any friends save ten said so; but, rue natural delicacy, tained from comment, except t Diana asked me if I ravel. I looked very pale, s noty of mind, e.
It o make my furts; for I roubled o t I could not no about my plans, to me tion I sances hem.
I left Moor ter four I stood at t of t of cross, ing to take me to distant t tary roads and desert approac distance. It ed one summer evening on t—e, and less! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered—not noo part une as ts accommodation. Once more on to t like the messenger-pigeon flying home.
It y out from cross on a tuesday afternoon, and early on topped to er t a uated in t of scenery of ern Norton!) met my eye like ts of a once familiar face. Yes, I kneer of this landscape: I was sure we were near my bourne.
“ler.
“Just the fields.”
“My journey is closed,” I t to myself. I got out of to tler’s co be kept till I called for it; paid my fare; satisfied tening day gleamed on t letters, “ter Arms.” My leapt up: I er’s very lands. It fell again: t struck it:—
“Your master is you kno to speak to your labour—you ter go no fartor. “Ask information of t ts at once. Go up to t man, and inquire if Mr. Rocer be at home.”
tion I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply t o prolong yet once more see tar. tile before me—tracted racking and scourging me, on t course I o take, I of t I c vie feelings I rees I knehem!
At last tered dark; a loud caillness. Strange deligened. Anotyard self, till vie s,” I determined, “tlements rike t once, and er’s very it— in front. Could I but see a moment! Surely, in t case, I s be so mad as to run to tell—I am not certain. And if I did— t by my once more tasting t t cideless sea of th.”
I ed along turned its angle: te just to tone pillars croone balls. From bely at t of tion, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom dratlements, —all from tered station my command.
tcook t t. t imid at first, and t gradually I greare; and ture from my nicraying out into top full in front of t mansion, and a protracted, o. “ affectation of diffidence first?” t stupid regardlessness now?”
ration, reader.
A lover finds ress asleep on a mossy bank; o catc ly over to make no sound; irred: for s on ures: s it, bends loe ty—. glance! But arts! ly clasps in bot, a moment since, touc er—by any movement sly: one dead.
I looked imorous joy toately house: I saw a blackened ruin.
No need to co, indeed!—to peep up at ctices, fearing life ir beo listen for doors opening—to fancy steps on t or trodden and e: tal ya a tlements, no chimneys—all had crashed in.
And t it: tude of a lonesome letters addressed to people cles to a vault in a cones told by e tion: but story belonged to ter? loss, besides mortar and marble and o ans—not even dumb sign, mute token.
In tered ated interior, I gat ty of late occurrence. inter sno, ed t void arcer rains beaten in at ts; for, amidst tation: grass and ones and fallen rafters. And oime land? Under arily o toes, and I asked, “Is er, ser of his narrow marble house?”
Some ans be o tions. I could find it no turned. t my breakfast into ted o s t doo ask acle of desolation I left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery. t able-looking, middle-aged man.
“You knoo say at last.
“Yes, ma’am; I lived there once.”
“Did you?” Not in my time, I t: you are a stranger to me.
“I e Mr. Rocer’s butler,” he added.
te! I seem to rying to evade.
“te!” gasped. “Is he dead?”
“I mean t gentleman, Mr. Eds flo Mr. Ed alive: gentleman.” Gladdening seemed I could o come— be—ive tranquillity. Since in t, to learn t tipodes.
“Is Mr. Rocer living at t t yet desirous of deferring t question as to where he really was.
“No, ma’am—oranger in ts, or you umn,—te a ruin: it do about -time. A dreadful calamity! sucity of valuable property destroyed: ure could be saved. t at dead of nige, t errible spectacle: I nessed it myself.”
“At dead of nigtered. Yes, t ality at t knoed?” I demanded.
“t ained beyond a doubt. You are not perinued, edging tle nearer table, and speaking lo tic, kept in the house?”
“I .”
“S in very close confinement, ma’am: people even for some years absolutely certain of ence. No one sa s to conjecture. t ress. But a queer thing.”
I feared noo ory. I endeavoured to recall o t.
“And this lady?”
“turned out to be Mr. Rocer’s about in trangest t Mr. Rocer fell in—”
“But ted.
“I’m coming to t, ma’am—t Mr. Eds say ter inually. to cs ore on everyt tle small t like a c I’ve ell of er forty, and t ty; and you see, ched. ell, he would marry her.”
“You sell me t of tory anotime,” I said; “but no suspected t tic, Mrs. Rocer, ?”
“You’ve it, ma’am: it’s quite certain t it it going. So take care of rust for one fault—a fault common to a deal of trons—s a private bottle of gin by ook a drop over-muc is excusable, for s: but still it er ter, tcake t of , let of t came into I don’t kno t. , s fire first to t doo a loorey, and made o t ters e at t, fortunately. ter soug precious te savage on ment: dangerous after oo. Mrs. Fairfax, to a distance; but tled an annuity on —s to scance ry, and s at the hall.”
“! did leave England?”
“Leave England? Bless you, no! cross tones of t at nig like a g about t is my opinion ed, bolder, keener gentleman t midge of a governess crossed a man given to hornfield hall.”
“ter ?”
“Yes, indeed o ttics s out of t back to get of to sanding, lements, and sing out till t streaming against tood. I nessed, and several more nessed, Mr. Rocer ascend t on to t minute s.”
“Dead?”
“Dead! Ay, dead as tones on wtered.”
“Good God!”
“You may ful!”
he shuddered.
“And afterwards?” I urged.
“ell, ma’am, after to ts of anding now.”
“ere any ot?”
“No—per er if there had.”
“ do you mean?”
“Poor Mr. Edtle t ever to ! Some say it judgment on marriage secret, and ing to take anot I pity .”
“You said he was alive?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, yes: many tter he dead.”
“hy? how?” My blood was again running cold. “here is he?” I demanded. “Is he in England?”
“Ay—ay— get out of England, I fancy—ure now.”
agony o protract it.
“one-blind,” last. “Yes, one-blind, is Mr. Edward.”
I rengto ask w y.
“It ill every one else before staircase at last, after Mrs. Rocer tlements, t crasaken out from under t sadly : a beam o protect ly; but one eye , and one Mr. Carter, to amputate it directly. t t of t also. he is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple.”
“here is he? here does he now live?”
“At Ferndean, a manor- ty miles off: quite a desolate spot.”
“h him?”
“Old Joe broken dohey say.”
“ of conveyance?”
“e have a chaise, ma’am, a very handsome chaise.”
“Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to Ferndean before dark the hire you usually demand.”