In a few minutes more she was once again speeding along the familiar
road which she had travelled under such different circumstances, and
with such different feelings. She remembered the first time she had
driven through those rustic villages, past those swelling uplands,
those woods and hills.
Then she had come as a bride, beloved, honoured, seated by the side of
an adoring husband--a happy future shining before her, a bright horizon
without one cloud.
Only one shadow to come between her and the sunshine, and that the
shadow of a cruel memory--the haunting recollection of that foul deed
which had been done beneath the shelter of the darkness, by the side of
the ever-flowing river. Even to-day, when her heart was full of her
child's sweet image, that dark memory still haunted her. It seemed to
her as if some mystic influence obliged her to recall the horrors of
that night.
"The curse of innocent blood has been upon me," she thought to herself.
"I shall never know rest or peace till the murder of Valentine Jernam
has been avenged."
Lady Eversleigh went at once to her rooms in Percy Street, and Mr.
Andrew Larkspur betook himself to certain haunts, in which he expected
to glean some information. That he was not entirely unsuccessful will
appear from his subsequent conversation with Lady Eversleigh. After an
absence, in reality short, but which, to her suspense and impatience
appeared of endless duration, Mr.
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