"Please, miss," he said, "I think I have found out something."

"And pray, what have you discovered, Harry?" demanded Isadore, as he paused.

"Why, ma'am," answered the boy, "I heard the gentleman yesterday, and all the folks, indeed, talking of footsteps, and asking where there were any to be seen, in sorts of unlikely places--"

"And have you found any?" exclaimed Isadore, speaking eagerly, from some of those vague, and often fallacious antic.i.p.ations which rush upon the mind in thousands when it is excited by any strongly-moving cause.

"Why, yes, ma'am, you see," replied the boy; "the gardener, when he was going away to search the wood, sent me down to the other side of the park to cut some box for the borders; and by the little door close by the river, which has not been opened these two years, I saw the marks of a gentleman's foot in the gravel, which is softish down on that walk, and greenish, too, for it ha'nt been turned this autumn."

"But how do you know it was a gentleman's foot?" demanded Isadore. "It might be either the gardener's, or the under-gardener's, or the gamekeeper's, for anything you know, Harry."

"No, no, miss," answered the boy; "I know it was a gentleman's, for they have little feet, and this was not bigger than mine; and it was not a woman's foot, because the heel was different."

"And a boy's?" said Isadore; "why might it not be a boy's?" The youth rubbed his head, saying, "It might be a boy's, miss; but I do not think it, miss, any how: I am sure it was a gentleman's--quite sure."

Isadore endeavoured to discover the grounds of this certainty; but when people whose ideas are not very clear upon a subject are pressed by those who would fain help them to disentangle the ravelled skein of their thoughts, they not unfrequently take refuge in a sort of blank stolidity, which prevents others from finding out the causes that they themselves are not able to explain. Such was the case in the present instance, and the only answer that Isadore could obtain to her questions, shape them how she would, was, that he--the boy--was sure that the footmarks were those of a gentleman.

With these tidings, however, with every willingness in the world to believe that they were true, and with a long train of phantom hopes to boot, Miss Falkland returned to her mother, taking the boy to the house with her. Mrs. Falkland listened with attention, and replied that it would be at least worth while to send down the old butler directly, to ascertain the facts more precisely.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, do not send him, mamma!" exclaimed Isadore.

"He is so fond of miracles, that he will declare it is the foot of an elephant. We shall never come at the truth from him."

"But whom can I send, then?" demanded her mother. "All the other servants are away; and both the gardener and under-gardener are with Mr. Arden."

"I will go myself, mamma," replied Isadore. "I shall have plenty of time to get there and back before it is dark; and I will take the boy with me to show me the place."

"You are right, Isadore," replied Mrs. Falkland: "the fact may be of no importance, but it may be of much; and, consequently, it is worth our own examination. I will go with you, my love, if Marian be still asleep. Wait one moment, and we will go and judge together."

Mrs. Falkland was not long absent. Marian was still lying overpowered with the opium; and the two ladies, having joined the boy in the hall, set out upon the search. While her mother was absent, however, Isadore called her own maid, and stationed her at one of the windows, whence she could see the spot to which the boy referred, and the path leading to it. She gave her also directions to remain there, and, in case of either Mrs. Falkland or herself making a signal, to send or come down to them in all haste. "I feel a sort of presentiment," thought Isadore, as she gave the orders, "that this expedition will end in something of importance."

Whatever it was likely to end in, the maid obeyed her orders as punctually as such orders generally are obeyed; that is to say, she remained two minutes at the window; and having seen Mrs. Falkland and Isadore walk about a hundred steps upon the path, she thought, "Dear me! I can just get the cap I was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and be back again here long before they are at the other side of the park." But, as she crossed the hall, she met with the old butler, who detained her just to ask her where his mistress and Miss Falkland were gone; and then told her a story, which he had heard when he was young, and the incidents of which were very like those connected with the fate of poor Mr. Edward de Vaux. Every hair on the maid's head stood on end, and gave her so much occupation, that, ere she could get back to her post, it was too dark to trim the cap any further; she therefore, immediately and punctually, turned her eyes on the spot which her mistress had directed her to observe, and watched most carefully, now that she could see nothing at that distance.

CHAPTER IV.

Isadore and Mrs. Falkland, in the meantime, took the little path towards the brink of the river, in the immediate neighbourhood of which lay the spot where the boy had remarked the footsteps. Mrs.

Falkland had lived too long in the great school of disappointment, human life, to suffer her expectations to be greatly excited; but Isadore, with a spirit naturally more enthusiastic, and as yet unchastened by any deep sorrows, felt her heart beat high, and her hopes struggle up against her fears, as she set out to take a more active part than she had hitherto been able to a.s.sume in the search for her cousin. The path wound along through the park, meandering considerably, perhaps in conformity to the taste of some ancient layer out of parks, or perhaps in consequence of the usual roundabout and circuitous nature of man's paths. Isadore, like all ardent minds, was tempted to make a more direct way for herself across the lawns; but Mrs. Falkland, in a more practical spirit, remembered that the gra.s.s was damp, and that it was not worth while to wet her feet for the purpose of saving half a minute. She adhered, therefore, to the gravel; and, as her more venturous daughter met with a little swamp occasioned by a spring, which obliged her to go round, they arrived at the spot they sought about the same time.

The spot itself, however, needs some description, and, indeed, it has been already described once before, with a special injunction to the reader to remember all the points and bearings which were then detailed. However, lest memory should be treacherous, we will once more take a view of the scene, as it was presented to the eyes of Mrs.

Falkland and her daughter, who were at that moment looking exactly west-north-west. Before them was a little shrubbery of evergreens and indigenous plants, kept as low as possible, so as just to hide the wall of the park, against which it rested, and yet not to cut off from the windows of the house a beautiful rocky bank, which rose on the other side of the wall to the height of a great number of feet. This bank formed one of the faces of a small wooded promontory, or rather peninsula, which was joined on to the hills by a narrow neck, over which the high-road pa.s.sed after having skirted the other wall of the grounds. It was surrounded everywhere but at that point by the river.

The summit was covered with rich wood; and down the sides also, in every place where the rock did not rise up abrupt and bare, a thousand various trees and shrubs had rooted themselves in the clefts and crevices, or towered up like pinnacles from the top of every detached fragment, and overhung the calm, still bend of the river, which served as a mirror to all the beauties round about it. The setting sun, with his lower limb just resting on the western hills, was pouring a flood of splendour down the valley of the stream; and his full light bursting upon the face of the rock to the left of Mrs. Falkland and Isadore, found its way round in bright catches of purple light, illuminating every tree and angle of the rock that stood forward before the rest.

Pouring on, too, the beams streamed down the little footway which--cut through the low shrubbery to a door in the wall--led out to another path running from the high-road to the river, between the park and the cliff; and by the clear light thus afforded it was easy to see the marks of which the boy had spoken. They seemed to have been made by some one coming from the gra.s.s on the side of the river upon the soft gravel of the path, and had turned suddenly towards the door, where they disappeared, as if the person had pa.s.sed through. They were small, too, as the boy had described, and were evidently not a woman's; but neither Mrs. Falkland nor Isadore were sufficiently well acquainted with De Vaux's footprints to feel anything like certainty concerning them. It were vain to deny, however, that the hopes of both were raised, though Heaven knows those hopes were vague and indistinct enough. Had either Mrs. Falkland or Isadore been asked what they expected to find, they would probably have answered, "Edward de Vaux;"

but had they been required to a.s.sign a reason for such expectations, to account for his absence, or to point out any principle upon which he could have abandoned the society of those he loved, and yet linger in their neighbourhood, they would have been embarra.s.sed for a reply.

But affection does not pause to argue. Hope, too, is ever most powerful when she triumphs over reason, and, though it may seem a paradox, expectation is never so vivid as when we know not what we expect. Hope, then, as bright as sunshine, but as vague and undefined as that sunshine when it streams through the morning mist, was lighted up by the sight of those footsteps. As Mrs. Falkland gazed on them, and traced them distinctly to the door, she exclaimed, "How very stupid it was of me not to bring the key!"

"I have a key, ma'am," said the boy, groping in the pocket of his jacket; and producing it accordingly, he advanced to the door and opened it. Mrs. Falkland now looked eagerly for more traces; but none were to be seen close to the door, though the ground was composed of a reddish sort of sand, which would easily have taken the print of even a light foot. At the distance, however, of about five feet were to be seen two deep marks of the same kind, but close together, with the heels more profoundly indented in the sand than the front of the foot; and it became evident that some one had leaped from the top of the wall. This was made still clearer, when, turning back, Mrs. Falkland examined the door, on the top of the lock of which several patches of gravel had been left by the foot of some one who had taken that means to reach the summit of the wall. In the mean time Isadore was eagerly tracing on the footprints, which led straight from the deeper marks to the bank; and on one of the large stones close by the river, she soon found the impression of a foot in red sand stamped upon the green mould with which the fragment of rock was covered.

"Here, mamma, here," cried Isadore. "He must have pa.s.sed here, and that since the rain of last night, too; for if you look, the marks are quite sharp, while some old ones going down towards the water are nearly washed away. I should not wonder if he were here now."

"Hark!" said Mrs. Falkland; "did you not hear a noise above there?"

They listened, but all was silent; and at length Mrs. Falkland added, "We have done wrong, my love, in not bringing more people with us, even if they were but women. The wood is so small and so shut in by the river that it might be searched easily."

"Send the boy back to the house, mamma!" cried Isadore, quickly: "he can bring down the butler, and probably some of the others may have returned. We can remain here, and watch till they come."

"But, Isadore," said Mrs. Falkland, gravely, "it is growing dusk and late, and the place is lonely and obscure: I do not see any good that two women can do here alone."

"Oh, Harry will be back in a moment, mamma," cried her daughter; "and, besides, n.o.body could hurt us. Any one on the high-road would hear a scream from this place."

Mrs. Falkland still hesitated; but Isadore continued eagerly,--"I will tell you how we can manage it then, so that there can be no danger.

Send him back for the people, and you go into the park to the little mound; there you can see the high-road quite across the point."

"But I will not leave you here alone, my love," cried Mrs. Falkland, in some surprise at the proposal: "indeed I cannot think of doing that."

"But, mamma, I have been here a hundred times alone before," replied Isadore; "and, besides, what I mean is, to get up to that little point where Marian and I have sat many a day. When I am there, you will be able both to see me and to hear me if I speak to you; and if any danger were really to happen, I could make the people with the cattle in the opposite meadow hear me, while you could also make them see or hear you from the house; and I set Charlotte at the window to watch."

Mrs. Falkland still hesitated; but Isadore continued rapidly, "Run, Harry, up to the house as fast as ever you can go; bring down Mr.

Gibson and any of the men you can find, and do not lose a minute."

"I am afraid that this is not very prudent, Isadore," said Mrs.

Falkland, as the boy ran off like lightning; "but I suppose your plan is the best one to follow now that he is gone. I will turn back to the mound then, while you go up there. But if the boy does not return before the twilight grows thicker, come down, by all means."

"I will come down whenever you tell me, mamma," said Isadore; "and I can hear everything you say at the mound."

Without more words, then, Mrs. Falkland hastened to take up her station at a little rising ground in the park, from the summit of which she could see, not only the whole of that part of the high-road which crossed the neck of the little promontory, but also the extreme angle of the cliff above the river. Isadore, in the meanwhile, climbed up by a steep and somewhat rugged path, which had been made at her request some years before, to a small point of rock which commanded a view both up and down the river, and afforded one of the most picturesque landscapes, on either side, that the country possessed.

The height was not more than ten or twelve feet above the stream, and the distance from the mound in the park not a hundred yards, so that any one speaking in a loud voice could be heard from one spot to the other. The ascent, however, while it continued, was steep, and Isadore's heart beat when she reached the top--nor, perhaps, was it the exercise alone that made it palpitate. Although she had not displayed any fear, she was not without some slight degree of alarm; and felt not a little of that sort of excitement and agitation which is not indeed fear, but which often produces very similar effects. She looked back as soon as she reached the point of the rock, but Mrs.

Falkland was not yet in sight. Another instant, however, brought her mother to the top of the mound, and Isadore demanded, "You can see the high-road, mamma, can you not?"

Mrs. Falkland did not at first distinguish what her daughter had said, and Isadore repeated the question. Not that in this inquiry she was at all influenced by fear, although it might appear so; but, in truth, Isadore's eagerness to send back the boy for aid, and remain upon the watch, had originated in a little stroke of strategy which was not ill-conceived, considering that it sprang from the brain of a young lady.

That there was some one in the wood above them Miss Falkland was quite convinced; and to ascertain who it was she knew was a great object at the time being. It had instantly struck her, therefore, that, by dividing their forces, her mother taking up a position on the little mound, whence she could see along the whole of the high-road, and down a considerable portion of the little lane under the wall, while she, Isadore, placed herself on the point which commanded a view of two other sides of the promontory, no one could well escape from the wood without coming under the eyes of one or the other of the fair watchers. She did forget, it is true, that, supposing the fugitive to be a man, and that man not her cousin Edward de Vaux, neither herself nor her mother were the least capable of making him stay, and that their hunt might very likely end, while the boy was absent, like a famous hunt of yore, in the catching a Tartar. A vague sort of consciousness, it is true, that such might be the case, impressed itself upon her mind as she climbed to the little point above the river; but still her first question was directed to ascertain whether their line of watch was, as she hoped, secure and complete.

She repeated her inquiry then, in a louder tone, and Mrs. Falkland replied, "Oh, yes, I can see to the river on the other side. But, indeed, Isadore, it is growing very dark. I can scarcely distinguish the house."

Isadore still lingered, however; for the spot where she stood, looking eastward, caught more light than the rest of the scene. She thought she heard a slight rustling sound, too, above her, as of some one creeping through the bushes; and it must be confessed that her heart beat violently. Although, in truth, she now began to think her scheme a little rash, yet curiosity and anxiety for her cousin's fate still kept her where she stood. The next moment, however, she saw some one, indistinctly, pa.s.s through the bushes on the edge of the higher part of the bank, and imagination did much to persuade her that she recognised the figure.

"Oh, mamma," she exclaimed, "I see him, I see him!" but the figure was instantly lost behind some more trees. It was evidently still pa.s.sing on to the eastward, as if to escape in that direction, for the branches rustled as it forced its way through; and Isadore took two steps back to catch another sight of it as it pa.s.sed before a bare facing of rock at the extreme point. At that moment there was a sudden rush through the brushwood; and ere Isadore could see that it was nothing more than a fragment of rock given way under the foot of the person above, she started back, thinking that it was he himself springing down upon her, lost her footing on the edge of the bank, and, with a shrill scream, fell over into the river.

Mrs. Falkland shrieked also, and rushed forward to the stream; but the height from which Isadore had fallen had caused her instantly to sink, and nothing was to be seen by the mother's eye but the clear glistening expanse of the water, with the reflection of the cliffs, and trees, and banks, and of the fading purple of the sky, broken by a thousand rippling circles, where her child had disappeared. With the loud, piercing, thrilling cry of maternal agony, she shrieked again and again; and, as she did so, springing from rock to rock, with the swiftness and certainty of a wild goat, appeared the figure which Isadore had seen above her. He stood for a single moment on the spot whence she had fallen, and then exclaimed to Mrs. Falkland, below, "Where is she, woman? where is she?"

"There, there!" cried Mrs. Falkland, pointing to the spot; but as she spoke a bit of white drapery floated up to the top of the water, a little farther down the stream. Pharold paused no longer, but leaped from the bank--sank--rose again--and in the next moment, with his left arm round the slender waist of Isadore Falkland, and her head thrown back upon his shoulder, he struck with his right towards the margin, where the soft, meadowy sloping of the park afforded an easy landing-place. There, springing on sh.o.r.e, he laid his fair burden on the gra.s.s, but she was pale, and moved not; and Mrs. Falkland gazing with agony on the colourless countenance of her daughter, wrung her hands, exclaiming, "Isadore! Isadore! she is dead! oh, she is dead!"

"No, lady," said Pharold, kneeling down, and looking intently upon the fair face before him--"no, lady! she is not dead, nor has the water had any effect on her. That is not the face of a drowned person. She must have fainted through fear, and will soon recover."