Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/317

 302 his assistant was heard, speaking down the stairs.

“Are you there, Mr. Carlton?”

“Yes,” responded the surgeon. “Anything wanted?”

“That child at Tupper’s cottage is taken worse; dying, they think.”

“And the sooner it dies the better,” was Mr. Carlton’s rejoinder to himself, in a voice of pity. “I can’t do it any good, poor little fellow, or ease its pain.—Who has come?” he called aloud.

“Only a neighbour,” replied Mr. Jefferson. “Perhaps you would like to hear what she says.”

“Coming,” said Mr. Carlton. He put down the cylinder, left the safe door open, and went up-stairs, intending, no doubt, to be back in a twinkling. As his footsteps died away, Lady Laura sprang from her hiding-place, and winged her flight up the stairs. She succeeded in gaining the top, the top of the cellar stairs, and she noiselessly stole round a corner which would take her to the others. A few paces from her was the surgery door, and she heard voices inside. At a time of less terror she might have stopped to listen, hearing where the messenger came from; but her own safety was above every consideration now, even above her jealous surmises. Arrived in her room, she sat there panting, not knowing whether she should faint or not.

She took some of the port-wine jelly, which still remained on the table, and leaned back in her easy chair to rest. After a while, when her heart had ceased to beat so violently, she rose from her chair, felt in her pocket, and drew something out of it.

It was the missing key, the key of the cupboard: had it been snugly reposing there all the time? What would Miss Stiffing have said? Lady Laura calmly unlocked the cupboard, leaving the door open, and then carried the key into her bedroom, and dropped it in a quiet nook on the floor, close to the key-drawer, where Miss Stiffing’s eyes would be charmed with its sight the first thing in the morning.

She sat down to the fire again, and opened the note, the note whose superscription was in the handwriting of her sister Clarice. But ere she had well glanced at its contents she was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Lady Jane.

“Lucy has got nicely to sleep,” said Jane, after sitting some time, “and I think I shall go to bed. You do not want me this evening, Laura?”

“I don’t want you,” returned Laura, impatiently, wishing Jane had not disturbed her before her curiosity was satisfied. “What do you want to go to bed at ten o’clock for?”

“I am feeling so very tired. My head aches, too. I am beginning, now that I am at ease as to Lucy, to feel the fatigue and anxiety of the past week or two. Good night, Laura.”

“Good night,” carelessly returned Laura, in a fever of impatience to get to her letter. “I shall be going to bed myself.” But Jane had scarcely gone out when Mr. Carlton came in, and Laura had to crush the stolen goods into her pocket again.

He sat down wearily, opposite Laura. He had been very busy all day, and had now come from a hasty run to Tupper’s cottage.

“How do you feel to-night, Laura?”

“Oh, pretty well,” was Laura’s answer; and the consciousness of the fraud she had been committing on him made her rather more civil than she had been of late. “You seem tired, Lewis.”

“Tired to weariness,” responded Mr. Carlton. “People are all getting better; but I’m sure it hardly looks like it, for they are more exacting than when they were in danger.”

“You were not home to dinner, were you?”

“No; I am going to take something now. Should you not be in bed, Laura?”

“I don’t know; I think I am tired of bed,” she answered, fretfully. “I shall go presently.”

He laughed pleasantly. “You are tired with having too little to do, I with having too much. Laura, I think we both want a change. It shall not be long now before we leave South Wennock.”

He sat a few minutes longer and then went down-stairs. Laura once more brought forth her letter, and took the precaution to slip the bolt of the door.

“Perhaps I shall be at peace now!” she cried, in a resentful tone.

In peace to read it, so far; but certainly not in peace afterwards; for the contents puzzled her to torment. She turned it about, she read it twice, she studied the superscription, she compared it with the lines themselves.

And finally she came to the conclusion that the letter was not written to Mr. Carlton, although addressed to him, but to Mr. Tom West. And that Mr. Tom West had married Clarice.

must go back to a very distant period if we seek a parallel to the flight of the Circassians from their homes to a strange land. From hundreds it increased to