By Birth A Lady Part 53

Max Bray stood for a minute as if stunned, and then leaping at the woman he shook her savagely, before he started off to make inquiries.

"Had anyone seen her?"

"No, not a soul." But her clothes that she had worn the day she was borne insensible to the hotel were gone, as was also her little leather reticule-bag.

"Where could she have gone?"

Only one place could strike Max Bray, as he thought of what she would do if sense had returned, and she had mastered her weakness sufficiently to enable her to steal from the house un.o.bserved. There was only one place that she could seek with the intention of fleeing from him, and that was the railway station.

"Was their life to be bound up somehow with railways?" he asked himself as he started off in the direction of the station. "Bai Jove!" he seemed to have been always either meeting or inquiring about her at booking-offices; but why had she not been better watched?

Why indeed, unless it was that a chance might be given her for seeking freedom. But the landlady's few minutes had been a full hour, and, as if in her sleep, Ella had slowly risen, dressed for a journey, taken her reticule in her hand, her shawl over her arm, and then, drawing down her veil, walked--unseen, unchallenged--from the house, and, as if guided by instinct, gone straight to the station.

A train was nearly due--a fast train--and still in the same quiet way she applied for a through ticket to London, took her change and walked out on to the platform, to stand there perfectly motionless and fixed of eye.

No one heeded her of the few who were waiting, no one spoke; and at last came the faint and distant sound of the panting train, nearer, nearer, nearer.

Would she escape, or would she be stayed before she could take her place?

It might have been thought that she would feel, if not betray, some excitement; but no; she stood motionless, not even seeming to hear the coming train: it was as though she were moved by some power independent of her own will.

There was the ringing of the bell, the altering of a distance signal, and the train gliding up to the platform, as a farming-looking man drew the attention of another to a gentleman running swiftly a quarter of a mile down the road.

"He'll be too late, safe."

"Ah!" said the other. "And they won't wait for him; for they're very particular here since the row was made about the accident being through the bad time-keeping of the trains."

"Look at him, how he's waving his hat!" said the first speaker. "He's running too, and no mistake. Why, it's that dandy swell fellow that's staying at Linton's, where his wife's ill."

"Serve him right too," said the other. "Why wasn't he in better time?

Those swells are always behindhand."

"Now then, all going on!" cried a voice; and the two men stepped into a second-cla.s.s carriage, against the door of which, and looking towards the booking-office, Ella was already seated, cold, fixed, and apparently perfectly insensible to what was going on.

"Cold day, miss," said the man who took his seat opposite to her; but there was no reply, and the next moment the man's attention was caught by what took place at the booking-office door.

Max Bray dashed panting up as the guard sounded his whistle, but only to find the gla.s.s door fastened, when, evidently half wild with excitement, he beat at the panels, gesticulating furiously as he saw the train begin slowly to move, and Ella seated at one window.

She could have seen him too, for her face was turned towards him; she must have heard his cries for the door to be opened; but she did not start, she did not shrink back; and now, mad almost with rage and disappointment, Max Bray forgot all about telegraphs surpa.s.sing trains, everything, in the sight of his prize escaping from within his fingers; and for what? To expose his cruel duplicity.

It would be ruin, he felt, and he must reach her at all hazards.

Turning, then, from the door, he ran along by the station to where a wooden palisade bounded the platform, and as the train was slowly gliding by him, he climbed over to reach the ground before the carriage containing Ella had pa.s.sed.

"Stop him!" shouted the station-master; and the guard, who had run and leaped into his van, stood pointing out the breaker of rules as he paused for a few moments upon his step.

"Here, hi! You're too late, sir!" roared a couple of porters running in pursuit; and as Max Bray leaped on to the door-step, and clung to the handle of the compartment with his face within a few inches of Ella's, a porter's hand was upon his arm; there was a shout, a curse, the words "Bai Jove!" half uttered, and then the speaker felt his hands s.n.a.t.c.hed from their hold; the next moment it was as though a fearful blow was struck him, and he and the porter were rolling upon the platform. But again there was a jerk, a wild shriek that froze the bystanders' blood, and the form of one of the wrestlers was seen to be drawn down between the last carriage and the platform; the guard's break pa.s.sed on, and Max Bray lay motionless upon the line.

Volume 3, Chapter XX.

THE BIRD FLIES.

"Here, let-down the window! Open the door! Good heavens, there'll be some one killed! Let him be; we'll get him in. Those porters are so officious, and they cause accidents, instead of preventing 'em. Let him be, I tell you, and report him afterwards. There, I thought so!

They'll be killed! Heaven help him--he's down under one of the carriages!"

So cried one of Ella's fellow-travellers as he witnessed the struggle from within, heedless, in his excitement, that not a word he uttered was heard by the actors in the thrilling scene. But as Max was caught by the carriage and dragged under the train, the man threw open the window and leaned out as far as he could, to draw his head back after a few moments, and impart his intelligence to the pale figure close beside him.

"I'm afraid he's killed, miss!"

Still no answer. Ella neither heard nor saw, for this part of her life--from the time when Max caught her wrists in his, and till long after--was a void that her memory could never again people.

"Deaf as a post, and a good thing too, poor la.s.s!" muttered the man as he again leaned out.

And now there was shouting, signalling, and the stopping of the train for a few minutes, long enough for the pa.s.sengers to see a motionless form lifted from the line and borne into one of the waiting-rooms, the pa.s.senger who had watched the proceedings having leaped out, but now coming panting back to reach his place as the signal for starting was once more given.

"Is he much hurt?" was eagerly asked by the other occupants of the carnage.

"I'm afraid so," said the pa.s.senger.

"Not killed?"

"No, I don't think he's killed. You see, he went down at the end of the platform just where it begins to slope. If it had been off the level, he must have been crushed to death in an instant. But I didn't have above a quarter of a minute to see him."

"It's very, very dangerous," observed one, "this trying to get into a train when it's started."

"Very," said another; "but they will do it. That gentleman, too, was so determined, climbing over the fence; and I suppose that made the railway folks determined too."

"He must have been anxious to get off, or he would not have acted as he did."

"Some particular appointment or another, I should think."

"Well, poor fellow, I hope he is not badly injured," was the charitable wish now uttered, when a dissertation upon the right or wrong action of porters in trying to stop people ensued, it being generally accorded that the by-laws upon which they acted ought to be rescinded, and that the guard ought to report all breaches of the regulations at the next station.

And all these comments were made within Ella's hearing, but without once diverting her steadfast stony gaze, as now, leaning back in her corner, she looked straight out at the flying landscape as mile after mile was pa.s.sed.

Once or twice a remark was made to her, but she merely bent her head; and at last she was allowed to remain unquestioned, unnoticed, as the train sped on swiftly towards the great metropolis.

She changed carriages mechanically when requested, and again and again produced her ticket, but always in the same dreamy strange way.

Pa.s.sengers came, and pa.s.sengers went, some speaking, others paying no heed to their closely veiled and silent companion; but not once did Ella speak or evince any knowledge of what was pa.s.sing around.

How that journey was performed, she never knew, nor by what strange influence she was guided in her acts; but press on she did, and to the end.

Volume 3, Chapter XXI.

THE COPSE-HALL GHOST.

"I wonder what's become of Miss Bedford!" said the cook at Mrs Brandon's, as she sat with her fellow-servants enjoying the genial warmth of the fire before retiring to rest.