In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had
left England, and men on both sides looked at each
other in dismay.
Meanwhile Mary had forwarded to her mother a note
written late at night, in anguish of soul:
“Alice wires to me to-night that Hester has
disappeared—without the smallest trace.
But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paris
to-night—Oh, my own, pray that I may find
her!—R. M.”
The mildness of the winter had passed away. A
bleak February afternoon lay heavy on Long Whindale.
A strong and bitter wind from the north blew down
the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow,
not enough as yet to whiten the heights, but prophesying
a wild night and a heavy fall. The blasts in
the desolate upper reach of the dale were so fierce
that a shepherd on the path leading over the pass
to Marly Head could scarcely hold himself upright
against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all the
upper and the lower air. From the high ridges
came deep reverberating notes, a roaring in the wind;
while the trees along the stream sent forth a shriller
voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the
eddying gusts. Cold gray clouds were beating
from the north, hanging now over the cliffs on the
western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes
of the northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky
black, the sharp edges of the rocks cut into the gloomy
sky; while on the floor of the valley, blanched grass
and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before
the persecuting wind.
A trap—Westmoreland calls it a car—a
kind of box on wheels, was approaching the head of
the dale from the direction of Whinborough. It
stopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading
to Burwood, and a young lady got out.
“You’re sure that’s Burwood?”
she said, pointing to the house partially visible
at the end of the lane.
The driver answered in the affirmative.
“Where Mrs. Elsmere lives?”
“Aye, for sure.” The man as he spoke
looked curiously at the lady he had brought from Whinborough
station. She was quite a young girl he guessed,
and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something
queer about her. She looked so tumbled and tired.
Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him
with an uncertain hand, one or more of the shillings
falling on the road, where the driver and she groped
for them. Then she raised the small bag she had
brought with her in the car, and turned away.
“Good day to yer, miss,” said the man
as he mounted the box. She made no reply.
After he had turned his horse and started on the return
journey to Whinborough, he looked back once or twice.
But the high walls of the lane hid the lady from him.
Hester, however, did not go very far up the lane.
She sank down very soon on a jutting stone beneath
the left-hand wall, with her bag beside her, and sat
there looking at the little house. It was a pleasant,
home-like place, even on this bitter afternoon.
In one of the windows was a glow of firelight; white
muslin curtains everywhere gave it a dainty, refined
look; and it stood picturesquely within the shelter
of its trees, and of the yew hedge which encircled
the garden.
