Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/587

 of his, and he was rather pleased to hear he was spared driving on that rainy night. He placed the portmanteau under the seat, and Mr. Carlton settled himself comfortably on it, under the protecting head of the carriage.

“You need not wait up for me,” said the surgeon.

“And the horse, sir?” returned Evan, opening his eyes.

“The horse will not be back to-night.”

He drove away, leaving Evan standing there and looking after him. Mr. Carlton was not a communicative master at any time, but Evan did marvel that he had given no further explanation now. Was he to be up earlier than usual in the morning to receive the horse and Mr. Carlton? All that Evan supposed was, that he was going to some patient where he was likely to be detained for hours. But then, what of the portmanteau?

“Where’s the master gone?” was Hannah’s rather sharp question to him as he turned into the house.

“Who’s to know?” retorted Evan. “He told me I was not to sit up for the horse. I suppose they’ll neither of ’em be home tonight.”

“To-night!” somewhat sarcastically repeated Hannah, “He’s not coming home for some daya, so he told ma It’s always the way! I wanted to have asked him for three parts of a day’s holiday to-morrow, and now I can’t take it.”

Mr. Carlton drove quickly up the gentle ascent that led to the Rise, and was about to turn into the lane fixed upon as his place of waiting, when advancing footsteps met his ear.

“Good evening,” said Mr. John Grey. “A nasty night.”

“Very,” emphatically pronounced Mr. Carlton. “Have you been far?”

“Only to Captain Chesney’s.”

“To Captain Chesney’s! Why! who is ill there? Not the captain, for I saw him go by my house not half an hour ago.”

“I have been to the little girl. She met with an accident this morning; fell against the window and cut her hands badly. You don’t happen to have heard mention in the town whether the Earl of Oakburn is dead, do you” continued Mr. Grey.

Mr. Carlton had heard nothing at all of the Earl of Oakburn; but the name occurred to him as being the same as that mentioned by Captain Chesney the night of the coroner’s inquest. “Why do you ask?” he said.

“Well, I have not heard of his death; but it strikes me that he is dead,” replied Mr. Grey. “Two days ago I know that he was lying almost without hope, ill of typhus fever; and as letters have come to Captain Chesney’s addressed to the Earl of Oakburn, I think there’s no doubt that the worst has occurred. In fact, I feel sure of it. I thought perhaps you might have heard it named in the town.”

Mr. Carlton was a little at sea. He did not understand the allusion to the letters addressed to the Earl of Oakburn which had come to Captain Chesney’s.

“Why, if he is dead, Captain Chesney is Earl of Oakburn, and the letters must be meant for him. I have just suggested that view of the thing to Miss Chesney.”

Mr. Carlton was of too impassive a temperament to betray surprise. Other men might have dropped the reins in their astonishment, might have given vent to it in fifty ways; him, it only rendered silent. Captain Chesney the Earl of Oakburn? Why, then his daughters were the Ladies Chesney!

“You think it is so?” be asked.

“I don’t think,” said Mr. Grey; “I feel certain of it. Good evening.”

“Good evening, repeated the younger surgeon, and touching his horse with the whip, he turned into the lane and waited.

Not for long. A very few minutes, and Laura Chesney came up, panting with agitation and fright. The storm was then pelting cats and dogs, as the children say. Mr. Carlton left his restive horse—for the horse did seem untowardly restive that night—and sprang forward to meet and welcome her. She burst into a flood of tears as he hurried her into the carriage and under cover of its shelter.

“O Lewis! I could not go through it again!” she sobbed. “I was all but stopped by Mr. Grey.”

It was a somewhat singular thing, noted afterwards, that John Grey should have encountered both of them on that eventful night, in the very act of escaping. Laura Chesney, watching her time to steal away unobserved, took the opportunity of doing so when she knew Mr. Grey was in the drawing-room with Jane and Lucy. But she was not to get away without a fright or two.

She stole down-stairs, along the kitchen passage, and out at the back door. There she saw Judith coming from the brewhouse with a lighted candle in her hand, and Miss Laura had to whisk round an angle of the house and wait. When the coast was, as she hoped, clear, she hastened on down the side path, all the more hastily perhaps that she heard the drawing-room bell give a loud peal, and was turning into the broader walk near the gate, where this path and the one conducting from the front entrance merged into one and the same, when she came in contact with Mr.