"You do not believe what I have told you?" she questioned, gently.
"I cannot; my love and my faith are all his."
"I have done my best," said Pauline, sorrowfully, "and I can do no more.
While I live I shall never forgive myself that I did not speak sooner, Lady Darrell. Elinor, I shall kneel here until you promise to forgive me."
Then Lady Darrell looked at the beautiful face, with its expression of humility.
"Pauline," she said, suddenly, "I hardly recognize you. What has come to you? What has changed you?"
Her face crimson with hot blushes, Pauline answered her.
"It is to me," she said, "as though a vail had fallen from before my eyes. I can see my sin in all its enormity. I can see to what my silence has led, and, though you may not believe me, I shall never rest until you say that you have forgiven me."
Lady Darrell was not a woman given to strong emotion of any kind; the deepest pa.s.sion of her life was her love for Aubrey Langton; but even she could give some faint guess as to what it had cost the proud, willful Pauline to undergo this humiliation.
"I do forgive you," she said. "No matter how deeply you have disliked me, or in what way you have plotted against me, I cannot refuse you. I forgive you, Pauline."
Miss Darrell held up her face.
"Will you kiss me?" she asked. "I have never made that request in all my life before, but I make it now."
Lady Darrell bent down and kissed her, while the gloom of the evening fell round them and deepened into night.
"If I only knew what to believe!" Lady Darrell remarked. "First my heart turns to him, Pauline, and then it turns to you. Yet both cannot be right--one must be most wicked and most false. You have truth in your face--he had truth on his lips when he was talking to me. Oh, if I knew--if I only knew!"
And when she had repeated this many times, Pauline said to her:
"Leave it to Heaven; he has agreed that Heaven shall judge between us, and it will. Whoever has told the lie shall perish in it."
So some hours pa.s.sed, and the change that had come over Lady Darrell was almost pitiful to see. Her fair face was all drawn and haggard, the brightness had all left it. It was as though years of most bitter sorrow had pa.s.sed over her. They had spoken to her of taking some refreshment, but she had sent it away. She could do nothing but pace up and down with wearied step, moaning that she only wanted to know which was right, which to believe, while Pauline sat by her in unwearied patience.
Suddenly Lady Darrell turned to her.
"What is the matter with me?" she asked. "I cannot understand myself; the air seems full of whispers and portents--it is as though I were here awaiting some great event. What am I waiting for?"
They were terrible words, for the answer to them was a great commotion in the hall--the sound of hurried footsteps--of many voices. Lady Darrell stood still in dismay.
"What is it?" she cried. "Oh, Pauline, I am full of fear--I am sorely full of fear!"
It was Frampton who opened the door suddenly, and stood before them with a white, scared face.
"Oh, my lady--my lady!" he gasped.
"Tell her quickly," cried Pauline; "do you not see that suspense is dangerous?"
"One of the Court servants," said the butler, at once, in response, "returning from Audleigh Royal, has found the body of Captain Langton lying in the high-road, where his horse had thrown him, dragged him, and left him--dead!"
"Heaven be merciful to him!" cried Pauline Darrell. "He has died in his sin."
But Lady Darrell spoke no words. Perhaps she thought to herself that Heaven had indeed judged between them. She said nothing--she trembled--a gasping cry came from her, and she fell face forward on the floor.
They raised her and carried her up stairs. Pauline never left her; through the long night-watches and the long days she kept her place by her side, while life and death fought fiercely for her. She would awake from her stupor at times, only to ask about Aubrey--if it could be true that he was dead--and then seemed thankful that she could understand no more.
They did not think at first that she could recover. Afterward Doctor Helmstone told her that she owed her life to Pauline Darrell"s unchanging love and care.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE WORK OF ATONEMENT.
The little town of Audleigh Royal had never been so excited. It was such a terrible accident. Captain Langton, the guest of Sir Peter Glynn, so soon to be master of Darrell Court--a man so handsome, so accomplished, and so universal a favorite--to be killed in the gloom of an autumn night, on the high-road! Society was grieved and shocked.
"That beautiful young lady at the Hall, who loved him so dearly, was,"
people whispered to each other, "at death"s door--so deep was her grief."
An inquest was held at the "Darrell Arms;" and all the revelations ever made as to the cause of Captain Langton"s death were made then. The butler and the groom at Darrell Court swore to having felt some little alarm at seeing the deceased drink more than half a tumblerful of brandy. The butler"s prophecy that he would never reach home in safety was repeated. One of the men said that the captain looked pale and scared, as though he had seen a ghost; another told how madly he had galloped away; so that no other conclusion could be come to but this--that he had ridden recklessly, lost all control over the horse, and had been thrown. There was proof that the animal had dragged him along the road for some little distance; and it was supposed the fatal wound had been inflicted when his head was dashed against the mile-stone close to which he had been found.
It was very shocking, very terrible. Society was distressed. The body lay at the "Darrell Arms" until all arrangements had been made for the funeral. Such a funeral had never been seen in Audleigh Royal. Rich and poor, every one attended.
Captain Langton was buried in the pretty little cemetery at Audleigh; and people, as they stood round the grave, whispered to each other that, although the horse that killed him had cost over a hundred pounds, Sir Peter Glynn had ordered it to be shot.
Then, when the autumn had faded into winter, the accident was forgotten.
Something else happened which drove it from people"s minds, and the tragedy of Audleigh Royal became a thing of the past.
Pauline did not return to Omberleigh. Miss Hastings was dreadfully shocked when she received a letter telling her of Captain Langton"s death and of Lady Darrell"s serious illness. No persuasions could induce her to remain longer away. She returned that same day to the Court, and insisted upon taking her share in the nursing of Lady Darrell.
Lady Hampton looked upon the captain"s accident as the direct interposition of Providence. Of course such a death was very shocking, very terrible; but certainly it had never been a match she approved; and, after all, say what one would, everything had happened for the best.
Lady Hampton went over to Darrell Court, and a.s.sisted in attending to the invalid; but her thoughts ran more on Lord Aynsley, and the chances of his renewing his offer, than on anything else. Elinor would soon recover, there was no fear; the shock to her nerves had been great, but people never died of nervousness; and, when she did get well, Lady Hampton intended to propose a season in London.
But Lady Darrell did not get well as soon as Lady Hampton had antic.i.p.ated. Indeed, more than one clever doctor, on leaving her presence, shook his head gravely, and said it was doubtful whether Lady Darrell would ever recover at all; the shock to her nerves had been terrible.
But there was something to be said also of a blighted life and a broken heart.
Autumn had drifted into winter; and one morning Lady Darrell, who had been sleeping more soundly than usual, suddenly turned to Pauline, who seldom left her.
"Pauline," she whispered, "you have not told any one, have you?"
"Told what?" she inquired.
"About poor Aubrey"s faults. I know now that he was guilty. Strange, solemn thoughts, strange revelations, come to us, are made to us in sickness, when we lie, where I have been lying, in the valley of the shadow of death. I know that he was guilty, and that he died in his sin. I know it now, Pauline."
Miss Darrell bent over her and kissed the white brow.
"Listen to me, dear," continued the weak voice. "Let this secret die with us--let there be a bond between us never to reveal it. You will never tell any one about it, will you, Pauline?"