A Bachelor's Dream Part 13

"That boy," she a.s.sented.

There was a pause, during which the Doctor rose and drew back from the tall, splendidly-poised figure, as firm and erect as he had ever seen it. He did not realize yet the blow that had fallen upon him, the blank in his life that would come later; but he felt as though he were struggling in a sea of horror, and was unable to disguise his shrinking from her, his avoidance of her, the woman to whom yesterday he had offered his love humbly, and whom he had besought to be his wife. He asked coldly, not looking at her:

"What can I do?"

"Sir, I have told you--save me. We were seen last night, the clue was followed up, and we were surprised an hour ago in our most secret meeting-place. Three of us were taken--all would have been but for the darkness, and that we knew so well each winding of the place. Where the others are I do not know. Sir, help me! I am penniless, your police--blood-hounds!--are on my track. Every moment that I stay here makes the danger greater. To-day I am a creature you hate, scorn, shrink from; but yesterday I was the woman you loved--help me, then! I am young to die--I saved you! Answer, will you save me?"

"I will help you," said George Brudenell, quietly.

Time has effaced many things from Doctor Brudenell's memory, but it can never blot out his mental picture of that night--the drive through the silent street to the distant railway-station, from which a train could be taken to carry them to the sea, the waiting through the dragging hours until the tardy dawn broke, the fear, the stealth, the suspicion, the watching, the rapid flight through the early morning, that ended only when the blue water--so cruelly bright, untroubled, and tranquil it looked!--was audible and visible. Not a word had he spoken to his companion through the night, nor did either of them break silence until they stood upon the deck of the vessel which was to bear her to the New World which has rectified so many of the mistakes of the Old.

The deck was being cleared of those who were to return to the sh.o.r.e, when, for the last time, she turned her beautiful eyes upon his face.

"Farewell, Monsieur," she said, quietly; and he echoed:

"Farewell, Mademoiselle."

Good Mrs. Jessop never discovered which patient it was to whom her master had been called in the dead of the night, and who had kept him away for the best part of twenty-four hours; and she never could understand what that "foreign young woman"--a person concerning whom she was for a long time exceedingly voluble and bitter--could possibly mean by running off in that scandalous way. But there were several other things that Mrs. Jessop did not understand--for instance, why the doctor for the next few weeks lost his appet.i.te so completely, was so "snappish and short," and seemed to care for nothing but the newspaper; and she was quite scandalized when he actually spent a whole day, as she, by dint of judiciously "pumping" Patrick, contrived to ascertain, in attending the trial of those "horrid wretches of dynamitards," where he heard the case, and heard the sentence of five years' penal servitude pa.s.sed upon a gray-haired man with a scar upon his cheek.

Laura has come home now, and the children are a great deal bigger and even more tiresome than ever. She thinks her brother is very stupid not to marry, and often roundly tells him so. But the Doctor takes her suggestion very quietly; he is too old now, he says, and, besides, as he reminds Laura, it was never "in his line."