This led to some strange
scenes between them which need not be detailed; their result was
soon to take a catastrophic shape.
One dark quiet evening, about two months after the marriage, a man
entered the gate admitting from the highway to the park and avenue
which ran up to the house. He arrived within two hundred yards of
the walls, when he left the gravelled drive and drew near to the
castle by a roundabout path leading into a shrubbery. Here he stood
still. In a few minutes the strokes of the castle-clock resounded,
and then a female figure entered the same secluded nook from an
opposite direction. There the two indistinct persons leapt together
like a pair of dewdrops on a leaf; and then they stood apart, facing
each other, the woman looking down.
'Emmeline, you begged me to come, and here I am, Heaven forgive me!'
said the man hoarsely.
'You are going to emigrate, Alwyn,' she said in broken accents. 'I
have heard of it; you sail from Plymouth in three days in the
Western Glory?'
'Yes. I can live in England no longer. Life is as death to me
here,' says he.
'My life is even worse--worse than death. Death would not have
driven me to this extremity. Listen, Alwyn--I have sent for you to
beg to go with you, or at least to be near you--to do anything so
that it be not to stay here.'
'To go away with me?' he said in a startled tone.
'Yes, yes--or under your direction, or by your help in some way!
Don't be horrified at me--you must bear with me whilst I implore it.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232