"To-night. It appears a friend of Mr. Parmalee is captain of a little vessel down in the harbor, and he sails for Southampton at the turn of the tide--somewhere past midnight. It is a very convenient arrangement for all parties. By the by, Mr. Parmalee told me to remind you, my lady, of the three hundred pounds."
"Mr. Parmalee is impertinent. I need no reminder. Have you anything more to say, Miss Silver?"
"Only this, my lady: the servants" entrance on the south side of the house will be the safest way for you to take, and the nearest. If you dread the long, dark walk, my lady, I will be only too happy to accompany you."
"You are very good. I don"t in the least dread it. When I wish you to accompany me anywhere I will say so."
Sybilla bowed, and the darkness hid a sinister smile.
"You have no orders for me, then, my lady?"
"None. Yes, you had better see Claudine, and say I shall not require her services to-night. Inform me when the servants have all retired, and"--a momentary hesitation, but still speaking proudly--"does Sir Everard dine at home this evening?"
"Sir Everard just rode off as I came in, my lady. He dines with Major Morrell and the officers, and will not return until past midnight, very likely. He is always late at those military dinners."
"That will do; you may go."
"Shall I not light the lamp, my lady?"
"No; be good enough to leave me."
Sybilla quitted the room, her white teeth, set together in a viperish clinch.
"How she hates me, and how resolved she is to show it! Very well, my lady. You don"t hate me one thousandth part as much as I hate you; and yet my hatred of you is but a drop in the ocean compared to my deadly vengeance against your husband. Go, my haughty Lady Kingsland--go to your tryst--go to your death!"
Left alone, Harriet sat in the deepening darkness for over three hours, never moving--still and motionless as if turned to stone.
The pretty Swiss clock played a waltz preparatory to striking eleven.
She sat and listened until the last musical chime died away; then she rose, groped her way to the low, marble chimney-piece, struck a lucifer, and lighted a large lamp.
The brilliant light flooded the room. Sybilla"s rap came that same instant softly upon the door.
"My lady."
"I hear," my lady said, not opening it. "What is it?"
"All have retired; the house is as still as the grave. The south door is unfastened; the coast is clear."
"It is well. Good-night."
"Good-night."
She stood a moment listening to the soft rustle of Miss Silver"s skirts in the pa.s.sage, then, slowly and mechanically, she began to prepare for her night"s work.
She took a long, shrouding mantle, wrapped it around her, drew the hood over her head, and exchanged her slippers for stout walking shoes.
Then she unlocked her writing-case and drew forth a roll of bank-notes, thrust them into her bosom, and stood ready.
But she paused an instant yet. She stood before one of the full-length mirrors, looking at her spectral face, so hollow, so haggard, out of which all the youth and beauty seemed gone.
"And this is what one short month ago he called bright and beautiful--this wasted, sunken-eyed vision. Youth and beauty, love and trust and happiness, home and husband, all lost. Oh, my father, what have you done?"
She gave one dry, tearless sob. The clock struck the quarter past.
The sound aroused her.
"My mother," she said--"let me think I go to meet my mother. Sinful, degraded, an outcast, but still my mother. Let me think of that, and be brave."
She opened her door; the stillness of death reigned. She glided down the corridor, down the sweeping stair-way, the soft carpeting m.u.f.fling every tread--the dim night-lamps lighting her on her way.
No human sound startled her. All in the house were peacefully asleep--all save that flying figure, and one other wicked watcher. She gained the door in safety. It yielded to her touch. She opened it, and was out alone in the black, gusty night.
Harriet Kingsland"s brave heart quailed only for a moment; then she plunged resolutely forward into the gloom. Slipping, stumbling, falling, rising again, the wind beating in her face, the branches catching like angry hands at her garments--still she hurried on. It was a long, long, tortuous path, but it came to an end. The roar of the sea sounded awfully loud as it rose in sullen majesty, the flags of the stone terrace rang under her feet. Panting, breathless, cold as death, she leaned against the iron railing, her hands pressed hard over her tumultuous heart.
It was light here. A fitful midnight moon, pale and feeble, was breaking through a rift in the clouds, and shedding its sickly glimmer over the black earth and raging sea. To her eyes, accustomed to the dense darkness, every object was plainly visible. She strained her gaze over the waves to catch the coming boat she knew was to bear those she had come to meet; she listened breathlessly to every sound. But for a weary while she listened, and watched, and waited in vain. What was that? A footstep crashing through the under-wood near at hand.
She turned with a wordless cry of terror. A tall, dark figure emerged from the trees and strode straight toward her. An awful voice spoke:
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came again to meet that man. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!"
She uttered a long, low cry. She recognized the voice--it was the voice of her husband; she recognized the form--her husband"s--towering over her, with a long, gleaming dagger in his hand.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ON THE STONE TERRACE.
When Sybilla Silver parted from Lady Kingsland outside the chamber door, she went straight to her own room, and began her preparations for that night"s work.
The flaming red spots, all foreign to her usual complexion, blazed on either cheek-bone; her black eyes shone like the eyes of a tigress crouched in a jungle.
But she never faltered--she never wavered in her deadly purpose. The aim of her whole life was to be fulfilled this night--the _manes_ of her dead kinsfolk to be appeased.
Her first act was to sit down and write a note. It was very brief, illy spelled, vilely written, on a sheet of coa.r.s.est paper, and sealed with a big blotch of red wax and the impress of a grimy thumb. This is what Miss Silver wrote:
SUR HEVERARD KINGSLAND:
HONURED SIR:--This is to Say that my Lady is Promised the hamerican Gent, for to meet him this Night at Midnight on the Stone Terrace, Which honoured Sir you ought to Know, which is why I write.
Yours too Command, A FRIEND.
"This will do it, I think. Sir Everard will visit the stone terrace to-night before he sleeps. It will be fully eleven, probably half past, before be comes home. He will find this anonymous communication awaiting him. He will fume and stamp and spurn it, but he will go, all the same. And then!"
She sealed the note, directed it in the same atrocious fist to the baronet, and then, rising, proceeded to undress.
But not to go to bed. A large bundle lay on a chair; she opened it, drew forth a full suit of man"s attire--an evening suit that the young baronet had worn but a few times, and the very counterpart of that which he wore to-night.
Miss Silver stood before the gla.s.s and arrayed herself in these. She was so tall that they fitted her very well, and when her long hair was scientifically twisted up, and a hat of Sir Everard"s crushed down upon it, she was as handsome a young fellow as you could see in a long day"s search.