It is perhaps after all excusable then for people to indulge, in moderation, in a little nocturnal alarm; and it may also, for aught we know, be good for us, and act as a safety-valve escape for a certain amount of bad nerve-force. No doubt Priam was terribly alarmed when his curtains were drawn in the dead of the night--as much so, perhaps, as the mobled queen; and therefore it was quite excusable for the Rector to answer the summons of the head of his wedding staff of servants in a state of no little excitement.

"Dreadful! extraordinary! most strange?" he faltered. "You were pa.s.sing, Henry, eh?"

"Yes: Mr Magnus and I were going by, and we found the policeman had discovered that the door was open."

"Then the place has been rifled," exclaimed the Rector; "and many of the things are hired," he cried piteously. "Everything will be gone! What is to be done?"

"Hush, Mr Mallow! we shall alarm the whole house," said Artingale, hastily. "I fancy I saw some one leave the place as we came up. Will you send and see if--if--"

He hesitated, for he saw Magnus with a face like ashes, standing holding on by the bal.u.s.trade.

"Yes, yes," exclaimed the Rector. "Speak out, please. Do you mean see if all the servants are at home?"

"I don't know--I scarcely know what to say," whispered Artingale, going close up to him. "We want to avoid exposure, sir. Go and knock at Cynthia's door, and send her to see if her sister has been alarmed."

"There is no occasion to frighten her. Let the place below be well searched, and the servants examined."

Just then Mrs Mallow's voice was heard inquiring what was the matter, and the Rector thrust his head inside the door to tell her that she was not to be alarmed.

"Is any one ill?" said a voice just then, which made Artingale thrill, and he ran to the door from which the voice had come.

"Dress yourself quickly, Cynthy," he whispered, "and go and tell Julie not to be alarmed. We--we are afraid there has been a burglary."

The door closed, and just then the Rector, who had been compelled to go back to his room to quiet Mrs Mallow's fears, came back.

"I will speak to the young ladies," he said, looking pale and troubled, and going along the landing, he tapped lightly at Julia's door.

"Julia, my dear! Julia!"

He tapped again.

"Julia, my child! Julia!"

Still no answer.

He tapped a little louder, a little louder still--but no answer; and Artingale and Magnus exchanged glances.

"Dear me, it is most embarra.s.sing. How fast she sleeps," said the Rector, looking round apologetically. "Really, gentlemen, I do not think we ought to disturb her."

All the same, urged by a strange feeling of alarm, he tapped again, but still without result; and once more he looked round at the strange group gathered upon the broad landing--the police in great-coats, and lantern-bearing; the butler with his candlestick and pistol; the two gentlemen in evening dress, with their light overcoats and crush hats in hand.

Just then a door opened, and every one drew back to allow the pretty little vision that burst upon their sight to pa.s.s them by.

The figure was that of Cynthia, with her crisp, fair hair lightly tied back, so that it floated down loosely over the loose wide _peignoir_ of creamy cashmere trimmed with blue, which formed a costume, as it swept from her in graceful folds, far more becoming than the most ravishing toilet from a Parisian _modiste_. She held a little silver candlestick, with bell gla.s.s to shade the light, and as she came forward, looking very composed and firm, though rather pale, Artingale felt for the moment as if he could have emulated Perry-Morton, and fallen down to kiss her pretty little slipper-covered feet.

"Ah, my dear!" exclaimed the Rector, "I am glad you have come. I cannot make Julia hear."

Cynthia darted a quick glance at Artingale, full of dread and dismay, and then without a word she pa.s.sed on and laid her hand upon the china k.n.o.b of Julia's door. Then she hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment, before turning the handle and going in, the door swinging to behind her.

Cynthia held her candle above her head and gave one glance round, the light falling on Julia's wedding dress and veil; the wreath was on a table, side by side with the jewels that had been presented to her.

Over other chairs and in half-packed trunks were travelling and other costumes, with the endless little signs of preparation for leaving home.

Cynthia gave one glance round her with dilating eyes; ran into the dressing-room and back looked at the unpressed bed, and then she let fall the candlestick as she sank on her knees uttering a loud cry, and covering her face with her hands.

It was no time for ceremony, and at the cry the Rector rushed in, followed by Artingale, Magnus stopping at the door to keep back the police and the servants, who would have entered too, both the men from below having now joined the group.

As the Rector ran in with Artingale, Cynthia started up once more.

"Oh, papa! oh, Harry!" she cried, piteously, "Julie has gone!"

"Gone!" gasped the Rector. "Gone! Where? Are you mad?"

"Mad? no, papa, but she is. Oh, Harry! I saw that dreadful man to-night outside in the garden, after we had gone to bed; but I thought she would be safe; and now I know it--I am quite sure. Oh, Harry, Harry! what shall we do? He has taken her away!"

PART TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT.

Unmistakably. There could be no doubt of the fact; Julia Mallow had fled from her home that night--half willingly, half forced, always drawn as it were by the strange influence that the man who had been the evil genius of her life had exercised over her.

For months past she had fought against it, and striven to nerve herself to conquer the force that seemed to master her; but always in vain. For often, unseen except by her, Jock Morrison was on the watch, turning up where least expected; and when not present in the flesh, seemingly always there in spirit, and haunting her like her shadow. Again and again he had come upon her alone, taken her in his arms, and in his coa.r.s.e fashion told her that he loved her, and that she should belong to him alone. Nothing, he told her, should keep them apart, for if he could not get her by fair means he would by foul; laughingly showing her the great spring-bladed dagger-knife he carried, and saying that he kept it sharp for any one who got in his way.

Julia trembled at the thought of seeing him; she shuddered and closed her eyes when he appeared before her, and then grew nerveless and weak, fascinated, as it were, like some bird before a serpent; and the scoundrel knew it. He felt the power of his words, and he repeated them to his shivering victim, glorying the while in the power he felt that he exercised over her.

Sometimes she had fancied that she was mastering her fear, but as she overcame that dread, she found, to her horror, that there was another occult influence at work which refused to be overcome; for as in the solitude of her own chamber she strove with it, she found that she was only riveting her chains more stoutly. It was not love for him. No, that was impossible; for she shuddered and shrank from him as from some monster. But, to her horror, she found that her feelings towards the great overmastering ruffian were something near akin. The thoughts of his great muscular figure, his bold bearing, and brown picturesque face were always before her; and even when her own were closed, his fierce black piercing eyes were fixed upon hers, reading her weakness, insisting upon his mastery over her more powerfully even than his words, though they were burned into her memory; and at last, after fighting with all her mind against the current of what she felt to be her fate, she had begun to drift.

Once she had allowed that terrible idea--that it was her fate--to obtain entrance, and she was lost, for it produced a weak submission that stifled every hope. Drift, drift, drift--resigning herself to what she thought was the inevitable. Some day, she told herself, Jock would come and order her to leave home and all she loved, and follow him wheresoever he willed; and she would have to go. He was her master, her fate; and mingled with her horror of him there was that inexplicable fascination that exercised upon her will the power of the mesmerist upon his patient, and she could fight no more. When it would be she knew not, thought not; only she knew that the time would come, and when it did she could no more resist, no more battle with it, than against that other inevitable point that would end her weary life--when the angel of death would overshadow her with his heavy wings, touch her with icy finger, and bid her away.

Always brooding now over these two fixed points in her career--the coming of Jock Morrison and the coming of the end; and so she drifted on. She heard the talk of the wedding that she knew would never be; for if the day did come, and she were taken to the church, she felt that her fate would pluck her from the very altar, or even from her husband's arms.

She knew of the love of James Magnus, and she felt a curious kind of pity for one whom she liked and esteemed; but she closed her eyes with a weary smile as she thought of him, for she knew that she was drifting away, and that even to look at him was to give him pain.

Drifting still when taken to see the talked-of home, asked opinions upon decorations, and taken by father and sister where she was prepared to be decked for the sacrifice. Drifting, too, at party or ball, where she met Perry-Morton, who always seemed to her like some nebulous mist, that was absorbed and died away in the presence of the giant ever filling her imagination.

Go where she would, she felt that she would see him somewhere, though often it was but imagination. Still it kept Jock Morrison always in her mind, and he knew that he was secure of his prize, waiting patiently till she came back from abroad.

At first she had felt a kind of sorrow for Perry-Morton, and wanted to warn him of what her fate would be; but the pity gave place to contempt, the contempt to disgust, the disgust to dread; for she felt that if she warned him he would take steps to a.s.sert himself, and if he did, she knew in her heart that her fate, as she called him, would not stop at taking his life.

And so by slow degrees Julia drifted from active opposition into a morbid belief that resistance was vain, nursing her horror in her own racked breast, and waiting for the fulfilment of her fate. As Cynthia had complained, she had grown reticent, and made no confidante of her sister; in fact, there were times, after seeing Morrison, when she felt with a sigh that she should be glad when all was over, and she need think no more. For she was weary of thinking, weary of this keeping up appearances, weary of Perry-Morton, of his sisters, of home, of her own life.

There were times when she looked from her window longingly towards where she knew the long lake lay in the hollow of the Park, and wondered whether it would not be better to flee from the house some evening, go down to the bridge, and throw herself in. She shuddered as she formed the idea; not from dread of death, which would have been like rest to her; but because she felt that she would be only hastening her fate, and that she did fear. For so surely as she left the house to cross the Park, so surely she knew that Jock Morrison would start up from the gra.s.s and take her away.

And so it had come to the wedding-eve, and the great burly form had shown itself in the garden. She had seen it early in the evening, and she had felt that it was there hour after hour, till Perry-Morton had left, and she had gone to the window, drawn there in spite of herself.

Later on she had obeyed Jock's signals, feeling as if he were speaking to her--telling her that the time had come, and dressing herself in her plainest things, she had sat down and waited by the open window, acting mechanically, till the deep voice came up to where she sat, bidding her come down now.

She felt no emotion, for it was all as if she were in a dream. She obeyed, however, going out on to the landing, after closing her window, to find that all was very silent in the house. Then for a moment she went and kneeled down upon the mat by her sister's door, laid her cheek against it, sighed heavily and kissed the panel that separated them, and slowly descended the stairs, entered the dining-room, and, still as if drawn by her fate, unfastened the shutters and window, which latter was thrown open, and Jock Morrison stepped boldly into the room.