Suddenly there was a flash of forked lightning at some distance, followed in a few seconds by a roll of thunder increasing in intensity until the last reverberation seemed to shake the ground.

They took refuge in a little barn and sat down. Madge, who was timid and excited in a thunderstorm, closed her eyes to shield herself from the glare.

The tumult in the heavens lasted for nearly two hours and, when it was over, Madge and Frank walked homewards without speaking a word for a good part of the way.

'I cannot, cannot go to-morrow,' he suddenly cried, as they neared the town.

'You SHALL go,' she replied calmly.

'But, Madge, think of me in Germany, think what my dreams and thoughts will be--you here--hundreds of miles between us.'

She had never seen him so shaken with terror.

'You SHALL go; not another word.'

'I must say something--what can I say? My G.o.d, my G.o.d, have mercy on me!'

'Mercy! mercy!' she repeated, half unconsciously, and then rousing herself, exclaimed, 'You shall not say it; I will not hear; now, good-bye.'

They had come to the door; he went inside; she took his face between her hands, left one kiss on his forehead, led him back to the doorway and he heard the bolts drawn. When he recovered himself he went to the 'Crown and Sceptre' and tried to write a letter to her, but the words looked hateful, horrible on the paper, and they were not the words he wanted. He dared not go near the house the next morning, but as he pa.s.sed it on the coach he looked at the windows. n.o.body was to be seen, and that night he left England.

'Did you hear,' said Clara to her mother at breakfast, 'that the lightning struck one of the elms in the avenue at Mrs Martin's yesterday evening and splintered it to the ground?'

CHAPTER X

In a few days Madge received the following letter:-

'FRANKFORT, O. M., HOTEL WAIDENBUSCH.

'My dearest Madge,--I do not know how to write to you. I have begun a dozen letters but I cannot bring myself to speak of what lies before me, hiding the whole world from me. Forgiveness! how is any forgiveness possible? But Madge, my dearest Madge, remember that my love is intenser than ever. What has happened has bound you closer to me. I IMPLORE you to let me come back. I will find a thousand excuses for returning, and we will marry. We had vowed marriage to each other and why should not our vows be fulfilled? Marriage, marriage AT ONCE. You will not, you CANNOT, no, you CANNOT, you must see you cannot refuse. My father wishes to make this town his headquarters for ten days. Write by return for mercy's sake.--Your ever devoted

'FRANK.'

The reply came only a day late.

'My dear Frank,--Forgiveness! Who is to be forgiven? Not you. You believed you loved me, but I doubted my love, and I know now that no true love for you exists. We must part, and part forever. Whatever wrong may have been done, marriage to avoid disgrace would be a wrong to both of us infinitely greater. I owe you an expiation; your release is all I can offer, and it is insufficient. I can only plead that I was deaf and blind. By some miracle, I cannot tell how, my ears and eyes are opened, and I hear and see. It is not the first time in my life that the truth has been revealed to me suddenly, supernaturally, I may say, as if in a vision, and I know the revelation is authentic. There must be no wavering, no half- measures, and I absolutely forbid another letter from you. If one arrives I must, for the sake of my own peace and resolution, refuse to read it. You have simply to announce to your father that the engagement is at an end, and give no reasons.--Your faithful friend

'MADGE HOPGOOD.'

Another letter did come, but Madge was true to her word, and it was returned unopened.

For a long time Frank was almost incapable of reflection. He dwelt on an event which might happen, but which he dared not name; and if it should happen! Pictures of his father, his home his father's friends, Fenmarket, the Hopgood household, pa.s.sed before him with such wild rapidity and intermingled complexity that it seemed as if the reins had dropped out of his hands and he was being hurried away to madness.

He resisted with all his might this dreadful sweep of the imagination, tried to bring himself back into sanity and to devise schemes by which, although he was prohibited from writing to Madge, he might obtain news of her. Her injunction might not be final.

There was but one hope for him, one possibility of extrication, one necessity--their marriage. It MUST be. He dared not think of what might be the consequences if they did not marry.

Hitherto Madge had given no explanation to her mother or sister of the rupture, but one morning--nearly two months had now pa.s.sed--Clara did not appear at breakfast.

'Clara is not here,' said Mrs Hopgood; 'she was very tired last night, perhaps it is better not to disturb her.'

'Oh, no! please let her alone. I will see if she still sleeps.'

Madge went upstairs, opened her sister's door noiselessly, saw that she was not awake, and returned. When breakfast was over she rose, and after walking up and down the room once or twice, seated herself in the armchair by her mother's side. Her mother drew herself a little nearer, and took Madge's hand gently in her own.

'Madge, my child, have you nothing to say to your mother?'

'Nothing.'

'Cannot you tell me why Frank and you have parted? Do you not think I ought to know something about such an event in the life of one so close to me?'

'I broke off the engagement: we were not suited to one another.'

'I thought as much; I honour you; a thousand times better that you should separate now than find out your mistake afterwards when it is irrevocable. Thank G.o.d, He has given you such courage! But you must have suffered--I know you must;' and she tenderly kissed her daughter.

'Oh, mother! mother!' cried Madge, 'what is the worst--at least to-- you--the worst that can happen to a woman?'

Mrs Hopgood did not speak; something presented itself which she refused to recognise, but she shuddered. Before she could recover herself Madge broke out again, -

'It has happened to me; mother, your daughter has wrecked your peace for ever!'

'And he has abandoned you?'

'No, no; I told you it was I who left him.'

It was Mrs Hopgood's custom, when any evil news was suddenly communicated to her, to withdraw at once if possible to her own room.

She detached herself from Madge, rose, and, without a word, went upstairs and locked her door. The struggle was terrible. So much thought, so much care, such an education, such n.o.ble qualities, and they had not accomplished what ordinary ignorant Fenmarket mothers and daughters were able to achieve! This fine life, then, was a failure, and a perfect example of literary and artistic training had gone the way of the common wenches whose affiliation cases figured in the county newspaper. She was shaken and bewildered. She was neither orthodox nor secular. She was too strong to be afraid that what she disbelieved could be true, and yet a fatal weakness had been disclosed in what had been set up as its subst.i.tute. She could not treat her child as a sinner who was to be tortured into something like madness by immitigable punishment, but, on the other hand, she felt that this sorrow was unlike other sorrows and that it could never be healed. For some time she was powerless, blown this way and that way by contradictory storms, and unable to determine herself to any point whatever. She was not, however, new to the tempest. She had lived and had survived when she thought she must have gone down.

She had learned the wisdom which the pa.s.sage through desperate straits can bring. At last she prayed and in a few minutes a message was whispered to her. She went into the breakfast-room and seated herself again by Madge. Neither uttered a word, but Madge fell down before her, and, with a great cry, buried her face in her mother's lap. She remained kneeling for some time waiting for a rebuke, but none came. Presently she felt smoothing hands on her head and the soft impress of lips. So was she judged.

CHAPTER XI

It was settled that they should leave Fenmarket. Their departure caused but little surprise. They had scarcely any friends, and it was always conjectured that people so peculiar would ultimately find their way to London. They were particularly desirous to conceal their movements, and therefore determined to warehouse their furniture in town, to take furnished apartments there for three months, and then to move elsewhere. Any letters which might arrive at Fenmarket for them during these three months would be sent to them at their new address; nothing probably would come afterwards, and as n.o.body in Fenmarket would care to take any trouble about them, their trace would become obliterated. They found some rooms near Myddelton Square, Pentonville, not a particularly cheerful place, but they wished to avoid a more distant suburb, and Pentonville was cheap.

Fortunately for them they had no difficulty whatever in getting rid of the Fenmarket house for the remainder of their term.

For a little while London diverted them after a fashion, but the absence of household cares told upon them. They had nothing to do but to read and to take dismal walks through Islington and Barnsbury, and the gloom of the outlook thickened as the days became shorter and the smoke began to darken the air. Madge was naturally more oppressed than the others, not only by reason of her temperament, but because she was the author of the trouble which had befallen them.

Her mother and Clara did everything to sustain and to cheer her.

They possessed the rare virtue of continuous tenderness. The love, which with many is an inspiration, was with them their own selves, from which they could not be separated; a harsh word could not therefore escape from them. It was as impossible as that there should be any failure in the pressure with which the rocks press towards the earth's centre. Madge at times was very far gone in melancholy. How different this thing looked when it was close at hand; when she personally was to be the victim! She had read about it in history, the surface of which it seemed scarcely to ripple; it had been turned to music in some of her favourite poems and had lent a charm to innumerable mythologies, but the actual fact was nothing like the poetry or mythology, and threatened to ruin her own history altogether. Nor would it be her own history solely, but more or less that of her mother and sister.