Kate was startled. "It's serious then, poor silly creature, if she goes out on a night like this!" For Mag had even more than the usual cowardice of her cla.s.s. Thunder-storms reduced her to abject terror.

For a moment Kate thought of following, before she realized the folly of the idea. How could she hope to catch so fleet a pair of heels, already lost in the darkness? Then a faint cry came to her, the sound of a child wailing forlornly.

She slipped out into the pa.s.sage, careful not to wake Jacqueline.

Whatever was to be done with Mag, one duty lay plain before her--to comfort the deserted baby.

She opened Mag's door without knocking.--The baby was not deserted. Mag herself stood at the window in her nightdress, cringing from the lightning, and wringing her hands and weeping. The baby wept in sympathy.

When she saw who had entered, Mag ran forward with a terrified cry, and fell on her knees, clinging to Kate's skirts as a dog crouches against its master to escape a beating.

"'T ain't my fault, 't ain't my fault! I done begged her not to go to-night, I done prayed her, Miss Kate! Oh, oh, look at that lightnin'!

She'll be kilt!"

"What are you talking about? Pull yourself together, Mag!" Even then the truth did not dawn on Kate. She thought she must have been the victim of some optical illusion. Mag had to tell her in so many words.

"Miss Jacky's gone to meet her fella again, and I _know_ she's goin' to git kilt!"

Kate reeled against the wall. "Again?" she whispered.

"I done begged her not to, no more. I knowed he'd git her into trouble if she kep' it up.--Oh, I helped 'em, and toted notes for 'em, an' all, 'cause I liked to see her so happy--but I didn't never think it would come to this! I'd 'a' tol' you if I dared, Miss Kate, but I da.s.sent, I da.s.sent. She liked me--she kissed me once. Oh, oh, and now she's gone!"

Kate forced her stiff lips into speech. "This--has been going on for some time?"

"Yes'm, right smart. Ever since he was sick here. I took'n him a letter from her the day he went away."

Even in that moment, Kate's whirling brain did Channing justice. He had kept his word, the letter of it, at least. He had not sought Jacqueline.

It was she who had sought him.

She was getting back her breath. "Now," she said, "where shall I find them?"

Mag's wails broke forth anew. "I dunno! Reckon it's too late. Oh, my Lordy! I took'n her bag to the Ruin before supper, and he was to come for her there at midnight. Reckon it's past that now. They've done gone!"

"Gone?" The word was a gasping cry. "Gone--where?"

"I dunno. The city, I reckon, or wherever he lives at.--Oh, my Gawd, lissen at that!" The wind struck the house a great buffet, and the thunder was rattling steadily as artillery now.

Kate's knees refused to support her. She held herself upright by clinging to the bed.

The sight of the Madam thus stricken and speechless sobered Mag out of her own fears. She bethought herself suddenly of the letter Jacqueline had left for her mother.

"Here! Maybe it says in the letter where she's gone at. Don't look that way, Miss Kate! I wa'n't to give you the letter till mornin', but here it is. You kin have it now, see, Miss Kate!"

Only a few sentences of the long, incoherent screed in her hand penetrated to Kate's brain.

I can't bear to leave you, I just can't bear it; but I love him so, Mummy!--He needs me, and you don't. He can't finish his book without me.--We're going abroad, and I'll study my singing while he writes. Some day you'll be proud of your little girl--You said when the time came to take my life in my two hands, and it's come. You know it is not his fault that we can't be married right away--but what does all that matter? You'll be the first to understand, because I'm doing just what you would have done for Philip's father, if it hadn't been for us children. I know! I understand you so well, darling Mummy. I'm your own child.--We're not n.i.g.g.ardly lovers, you and I! We're not afraid to give all we have--

Kate uttered a hoa.r.s.e exclamation, and dropped the letter. Her moment of helplessness had pa.s.sed. She ran down stairs, two steps at a time, Mag at her heels. She jerked open the side door, and was almost driven from her feet by a great gust of driving rain. It was Mag who wrapped around her the first cloak that came to hand, the big, hooded cape Jacqueline had worn the night before, Kate stopped for nothing except to seize the rawhide whip which hung on its accustomed nail beside the door.

"What you goin' to do with that?" gasped Mag.

"My pistols are upstairs," muttered the other.

Mag stood at the door as long as she could, catching glimpses as the lightning flashed of a shrouded, hooded figure running with the wind, fast, fast, like some wild witch abroad upon the elements.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

It seemed to Kate presently, as she ran, that the wind was a friend, trying to help her. The driving rain on her face cleared her brain. Even the lightning was a friend, for without it she could not have seen a foot of her way ahead in the blackness.

Each time it flashed she stared about her, hoping to catch sight of Jacqueline. Suddenly she lifted up her voice and prayed aloud: "G.o.d, if You are up there, if there really is a You, now's Your chance to prove it! You hear me, G.o.d?" It was more a challenge than a prayer.

She knew that the girl had perhaps twenty minutes' start of her, but she might yet overtake her, and in this storm Channing might well be late.

She slipped as she started down the ravine, and fell and rolled half way, bruising herself on tree roots and boulders, the wet gra.s.s soaking her to the skin.--No matter, it lost her no time. She fought her way through dripping, clinging underbrush to the ruins of the slave-house.

The lightning showed it empty.--Could she have pa.s.sed Jacqueline somehow in the darkness? She dared not wait to see, but ran on into the lane beyond. n.o.body was in sight.

"I am too late!" she moaned, wringing her hands. "What shall I do now?"

She was convinced that Channing had already come for Jacqueline. She started running down the road, as if she might overtake the automobile on foot.

If she had waited at the cabin for a second lightning flash, she could not have failed to notice the traveling-bag left by Mag beside the door.

Jacqueline, slipping into one of the stables to escape the first brunt of the storm, had lingered a moment to say good-by to her friends the horses; and it was at that moment that her mother pa.s.sed. Kate had reached the Ruin first.

But she did not know it. When at the turn of the road she saw the glare of a headlight, she thought, "He's got her!" She was nearly exhausted by this time, too dazed to realize that the machine was approaching, not leaving, Storm. She gripped her rawhide whip and stepped directly into the path of the automobile.

It swerved violently, and came to a stand not a foot from her.

"Good G.o.d, Jacqueline! I almost ran you down," cried Channing. "Quick, jump in. You must be soaked to the bone, you plucky little darling!"

Quick as thought, Kate pulled open the door of the tonneau and slipped in behind. His mistake had stimulated her failing wits. Let him think her Jacqueline as long as possible! She choked back a laugh of rising excitement.

"You're wise--it's drier there than in front. Gad, what a storm! I was almost afraid it would scare you off. But I might have known better!"

Kate, listening acutely, detected a rather odd expression about the last words, and wondered suddenly whether Jacqueline's nonappearance might not have been something of a relief to Mr. Channing. Her eyes glittered, and she drew the shrouding hood closer about her face.

He had started the engine, and was turning the machine around. So far he had given her no opportunity to speak, and had to shout himself to be heard above the noise of the engine and the storm.

"We're going to have a run for it. I've arranged to have the 12:45 stop a second to take us on, and I'm late--This d.a.m.ned wind!"

The powerful car leaped forward. On two wheels it made the turn of the road, full into the teeth of the storm. Channing bent over his wheel.

"Plenty of time to talk afterwards. Hold on tight!" His voice blew back to her, faint in the roar of the blast.

Kate settled back for the wild ride with a smile on her face, just such a grim, gay little smile as her daughter had worn when she led her cavalry charge against the Night Riders. She was secure from discovery for a few precious moments; while back there at the mouth of the ravine the real Jacqueline waited, bag in hand, anxious, crying a little perhaps, watching for a lover who would not appear.--Let her cry! She was safe there, safe with the friendly storm, the wind, the rain, and the lightning that do nothing worse than kill.

Far away across the wide plateau before them sounded the shrill whistle of a train. It shot into sight, a long, slim, glittering thing, flying a pennant of fiery smoke. Kate laughed exultingly. She never heard these trains shrieking their way through the darkness without a shuddering memory of her night of vigil in Frankfort, listening for the one which was to carry away her child, and which had taken instead the man she loved better than any child. She was a little beyond herself now, a little _exaltee_, as the French say, with the excitement of the moment; and it seemed to her that the approaching train was an old enemy upon whom she was about to be avenged by robbing it of its prey.

"Hurry, hurry!" she cried, leaning forward, forgetting in her excitement that she must not speak.