Leave it at the village with the man, come on here on foot, and stay under the trees till just before six: it will then be quite dark, and you must stand under the projecting balustrade a little further on than the door you came in by. I will just step upon the balcony over it, and tell you more exactly than I can now the precise time that I shall be able to slip out, and where the carriage is to be waiting. But it may not be safe to speak on account of his closeness to me--I will hand down a note. I find it is impossible to leave the house by daylight--I am certain to be pursued--he already suspects something. Now I must be going, or he will be here, for he watches my movements because of some accidental words that escaped me.'
'Berta, I shan't have anything to do with this,' said Sol. 'It is not right!'
'I am only going to Rouen, to Aunt Charlotte!' she implored. 'Iwant to get to Southampton, to be in time for the midnight steamer.
When I am at Rouen I can negotiate with Lord Mountclere the terms on which I will return to him. It is the only chance I have of rooting out a scandal and a disgrace which threatens the beginning of my life here! My letters to him, and his to me, can be forwarded through you or through father, and he will not know where I am. Any woman is justified in adopting such a course to bring her husband to a sense of her dignity. If I don't go away now, it will end in a permanent separation. If I leave at once, and stipulate that he gets rid of her, we may be reconciled.'
'I can't help you: you must stick to your husband. I don't like them, or any of their sort, barring about three or four, for the reason that they despise me and all my sort. But, Ethelberta, for all that I'll play fair with them. No half-and-half trimming business. You have joined 'em, and 'rayed yourself against us; and there you'd better bide. You have married your man, and your duty is towards him. I know what he is and so does father; but if I were to help you to run away now, I should scorn myself more than I scorn him.'
'I don't care for that, or for any such politics! The Mountclere line is noble, and how was I to know that this member was not noble, too? As the representative of an illustrious family I was taken with him, but as a man--I must shun him.'
'How can you shun him? You have married him!'
'Nevertheless, I won't stay! Neither law nor gospel demands it of me after what I have learnt. And if law and gospel did demand it, Iwould not stay. And if you will not help me to escape, I go alone.'
'You had better not try any such wild thing.'
The creaking of a door was heard. 'O Sol,' she said appealingly, 'don't go into the question whether I am right or wrong--only remember that I am very unhappy. Do help me--I have no other person in the world to ask! Be under the balcony at six o'clock. Say you will--I must go--say you will!'
'I'll think,' said Sol, very much disturbed. 'There, don't cry;I'll try to be under the balcony, at any rate. I cannot promise more, but I'll try to be there.'
She opened in the panelling one of the old-fashioned concealed modes of exit known as jib-doors, which it was once the custom to construct without architraves in the walls of large apartments, so as not to interfere with the general design of the room. Sol found himself in a narrow passage, running down the whole length of the ball-room, and at the same time he heard Lord Mountclere's voice within, talking to Ethelberta. Sol's escape had been marvellous: as it was the viscount might have seen her tears. He passed down some steps, along an area from which he could see into a row of servants' offices, among them a kitchen with a fireplace flaming like an altar of sacrifice. Nobody seemed to be concerned about him; there were workmen upon the premises, and he nearly matched them. At last he got again into the shrubberies and to the side of the park by which he had entered.
On reaching Corvsgate he found Picotee in the parlour of the little inn, as he had directed. Mr. Julian, she said, had walked up to the ruins, and would be back again in a few minutes. Sol ordered the horse to be put in, and by the time it was ready Christopher came down from the hill. Room was made for Sol by opening the flap of the dogcart, and Christopher drove on.
He was anxious to know the trouble, and Sol was not reluctant to share the burden of it with one whom he believed to be a friend. He told, scrap by scrap, the strange request of Ethelberta.
Christopher, though ignorant of Ethelberta's experience that morning, instantly assumed that the discovery of some concealed spectre had led to this precipitancy.
'When does she wish you to meet her with the carriage?'
'Probably at half-past seven, at the west lodge; but that is to be finally fixed by a note she will hand down to me from the balcony.'
'Which balcony?'
'The nearest to the yew-tree.'
'At what time will she hand the note?'
'As the Court clock strikes six, she says. And if I am not there to take her instructions of course she will give up the idea, which is just what I want her to do.'
Christopher begged Sol to go. Whether Ethelberta was right or wrong, he did not stop to inquire. She was in trouble; she was too clear-headed to be in trouble without good reason; and she wanted assistance out of it. But such was Sol's nature that the more he reflected the more determined was he in not giving way to her entreaty. By the time that they reached Anglebury he repented having given way so far as to withhold a direct refusal.
'It can do no good,' he said mournfully. 'It is better to nip her notion in its beginning. She says she wants to fly to Rouen, and from there arrange terms with him. But it can't be done--she should have thought of terms before.'
Christopher made no further reply. Leaving word at the 'Red Lion' that a man was to be sent to take the horse of him, he drove directly onwards to the station.
'Then you don't mean to help her?' said Julian, when Sol took the tickets--one for himself and one for Picotee.
'I serve her best by leaving her alone!' said Sol.
'I don't think so.'
'She has married him.'
'She is in distress.'
'She has married him.'
