"Do not, oh! do not speak of that! I--I would have given my life to have prevented Rule"s loss, if I could! As for this man--this duke--he is nothing whatever to me, and never can be!"
"And yet you were ready to fall down and worship him three years ago!"
"It was a brief insanity--a self-delusion. That is past. c.u.mbervale never was and never can be anything to me. No man can ever be anything to me! I could not live Rule"s wife, but I will die Rule"s widow; and I do not care how soon--the sooner the better, if it were the Lord"s will!" moaned Corona.
"Drivel!" angrily exclaimed old Aaron Rockharrt. "I am tired of your idiotic, imbecile hypocrisies! Here are two men driven away by your unprincipled vacillation--to call your conduct by the lightest name. One driven to his death; one driven, it may be, to his ruin. It is quite time you were sent to follow your victims. Look you! I am just about to start for North End. I shall return home at my usual time this evening.
Do not let me find you here when I arrive, for I never wish to see your false face again!" said the Iron King, rising from his arm chair and striding from the room.
Corona started up and ran after him, pleading, imploring--
"Grandfather! Dear grandfather! Oh, I beg pardon! I forgot! Sir! sir!
Oh, do not part from me in this way!"
He turned sharply, stared at her mockingly, and then demanded:
"Come! Shall I call c.u.mbervale back? Tell him that you have changed your whirligig mind, and are ready to marry him, if he will only take time by the forelock and return before you shift around again? I can easily do that. I can send a telegram that will over-take him and turn him back so promptly that he may be here in twenty-four hours! Come! Shall I do that?"
Corona, who had been gazing at the mocking speaker scarcely knowing whether he spoke in earnest or in irony, now answered despairingly:
"Oh, no, no! not for the world! I have not changed my mind. I could not do so for any cause."
"Then don"t stop me. I"m in haste. I am going to North End. Don"t let me find you here when I come back. Don"t let me ever see or hear from you again, without your consent to marry the man I have chosen for you.
John!"
"Oh, sir, consider--" began Corona, pleadingly.
"John!" vociferated the Iron King, pushing rudely past her.
The old servant came hurrying up, helped his master on with his overcoat and with his rubber coat, then gave him his hat and gloves, and finally hoisted a large umbrella to hold over his master"s head as he pa.s.sed from the house to the carriage in front.
Corona stood watching until the carriage rolled away and old John came back into the hall and closed the door. Then she returned to the library and sank sobbing into the big leathern chair. She now realized for the first time what the parting with her grandfather would be--the parting with the gray old man who had been the ogre of her childhood, the terror of her youth, and the autocrat of her maturity, and yet whom, by all the laws of nature, she tenderly loved, and whom by the commandment of G.o.d she was bound to honor.
She glanced mechanically toward the card rack, and saw there another letter in the handwriting of her brother--a letter that had come in the morning"s mail and had been stuck up there, and in the excitement of the hour had been neglected or forgotten.
She seized it eagerly and tore it open, wondering what could have urged Sylvan to write so soon after his last letter.
It was dated three weeks later than the one she had received only the day previous, the first one having, no doubt, been delayed somewhere along the uncertain route.
In this letter Sylvan complained that he had not received a word from his dear sister since leaving Governor"s Island, and mentioned that he himself had written all along the line of march and three times since the arrival of his regiment at Fort Farthermost.
But he admitted, also, that the mails beyond the regular United States mail roads were very uncertain and irregular. Then he came to the object of this particular epistle.
"It is, my dear Cora, to tell you," he wrote, "that if you should still be resolved to come out and join me here, an opportunity for your safe conduct will be offered you this autumn which may never occur again. Our senior captain--Captain Neville, Company A--has been absent on leave for several months. So he did not come out here with the regiment. His leave expires on the 30th of November. He will be obliged to start in the latter part of October in order to have time enough to accomplish the tedious journey by wagon from Leavenworth to Fort Farthermost, which is, as I believe I told you, in the southern part of the Indian Reserve, bordering on Texas. He is to bring his wife with him.
"But our colonel thinks it is I who want you, and, moreover, I who need you; for he says that, next to a wife, a sister is the best safeguard a young officer can have out in these frontier forts, and he gave me the address of Captain Neville and advised me to write to him and ask him and his wife to take charge of my sister on the route.
"And then, dear, he went further than that. He took my letter after I had written it, and inclosed it in one from himself. So now, my dear, all you have to do is to go to Washington, call on Mrs. Neville, at Brown"s Hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue, and send up your card. She will expect you. Then you must hold yourself in readiness to start when the captain and his wife do."
Cora had no time to indulge in reverie. She must be up and doing.
Her luggage had long been stored in the freight house of the North End railway station, and her traveling bags had been packed the day before.
The servants knew she was going out to join her brother, though they did not know that her grandfather had discarded her. She had very little to do for herself on that day, but she resolved to do all that she could for the comfort of her grandfather before she should leave the house forever.
So she went and ordered the dinner--just such a dinner as she knew he would like. Then she called old John to her presence and directed him to have the parlor prepared for his master just as carefully as if she herself were on the spot to see it done; to have the fire bright; the hearth clean; the lamps trimmed and lighted; the shutters closed and the curtains drawn; the easy chair, with dressing gown and slippers, before the fire, and, lastly, a jug of hot punch on the hearth.
Old John promised faithfully to perform all these duties. Then Cora went and wrote two letters.
One to her brother Sylvan, in which she acknowledged the receipt of his letter, expressed her thanks to the colonel for his kindness, and a.s.sured him that she should gladly avail herself of the escort of the Nevilles and go out under their protection to Fort Farthermost.
This letter she put in the mail bag in the hall ready for the messenger to take to the North End post office.
The second letter was a farewell to her grandfather, in which she expressed her sorrow at leaving him even at his own command; her grief at having offended him, however unintentionally; her prayers for his forgiveness, and her hope to meet him again in health, happiness and prosperity.
This letter Corona stuck on the card rack, where he would be sure to find it.
Then she ordered her own little pony carriage, and went and put on her bonnet and her warm fur-lined cloak and called Mark to bring her shawls and traveling bags down to the hall.
When all this had been done, Corona called all the servants together, made them each a little present, and then bade them good-by.
Then she stepped into the little carriage and bade the groom to drive on to Violet Banks.
"I think I shall go no further than that to-night, my friends, and leave for Washington to-morrow morning," she said, in a broken voice, as the pony started.
"Then all ob us wot kin get off will come to bid yer annurrer good-by to-morrow mornin"!" came hoa.r.s.ely from one of the crowd, and was repeated by all in a chorus.
The carriage rolled down the avenue to the ferry--not that Corona intended to cross the river, for Violet Banks, it will be remembered, was on the same side and a few miles north of Rockhold--but that she would not leave the place without taking leave of old Moses, the ferryman. Fortunately the boat lay idle at its wharf, and the old man sat in the ferry house, hugging the stove and smoking his pipe.
He came out at the sound of wheels. Corona called him to the carriage, told him that she did not want to cross the river, but that she was going away for a while and wished to take leave of him.
Now old Moses had seen too many arrivals and departures to and from Rockhold to feel much emotion at this news; besides he had no idea of the gravity of this departure. So he only touched his old felt hat and said:
"Eh, young mist"ess, hopes how yer"ll hab a monsous lubly time! Country is dull for de young folks in de winter. Gwine to de city, s"pose, young mist"ess?"
"Yes, Uncle Moses, I am going to Washington first," replied Corona.
"Lors! I hear tell how so many folkses do go to Washintub! Wunner wot dey go for? in de winter, too! Lors! Well, honey, I wish yer a mighty fine time and a handsome husban" afore yer comes home. Lor" bress yer, young mist"ess!"
"Thank you, Uncle Moses. Here is a trifle for you," said Cora, putting a half eagle in his hand.
"Lor" bress yer, young mist"ess, how I do tank yer wid all my heart! I nebber had so much money at one time in all my life!" exclaimed the overjoyed old ferryman.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
FAREWELL TO VIOLET BANKS.