All these pointed to a great danger which threatened those who had been connected with the Sisterhood, especially Mary Duncan. There were other papers too which tended to show that the members of the Society attributed their peril to the treason of one of their number--clearly Mary--who was accused of having made certain disclosures to the authorities. They were alarming doc.u.ments, intended to prove clearly that the young mother was suspected by both sides, was being hunted down by both the police and by her old a.s.sociates.

Susan would laugh to herself as she completed each of these works of art, and would look at them with no small pride. "I wonder if she will be fool enough to swallow all this?" she asked herself. "And yet why not? If she does believe in them, she will see that one course only is left to her--to fly from England, to desert her husband and her child, so as not to bring disgrace upon their heads. I believe I am on the right track at last. Ah! Susie, you have not forgotten your cunning after all!"

At last the fatal Sat.u.r.day arrived, and she started for St. John's Wood, armed with her papers, intending to show some, all, or none of them, to Mary, exactly as circ.u.mstances should make expedient.

She prowled about in the neighbourhood of the house, till she saw the doctor go out. She followed him to the railway station and satisfied herself that he had started; but she did not observe that the shabby old woman with the basket was following her also, though at a long distance, never losing sight of her.

Susan walked back to the doctor's house, reaching it about ten minutes after he had left it, and rang the bell.

The housemaid opened the door.

"How is Mrs. Duncan to-day? I have called to see her," Susan said.

"Mrs. Duncan is very ill, ma'am, and she is not allowed to see anyone."

"Oh! but it is all right," Susan explained, "I am Mrs. Duncan's oldest friend. I have just met the doctor on my way here. He would have come back with me; but he said he had no time to do so, as he was obliged to catch the train to P----"

"Did Dr. Duncan know that you wished to see my mistress, ma'am?"

"Indeed he did. He particularly asked me to see Mary--Mrs. Duncan I mean, he thinks it will do her good. Will you kindly tell your mistress that Mrs. Riley has called to see her, that the doctor has sent me to see her. Kindly tell her also that I have some news of great importance to communicate to her."

The girl hesitated. She had received strict injunctions to admit no visitors to her mistress. But she could scarcely discredit the statement of this lady, who, she reasoned, must certainly have conversed with the doctor on his way, else she could not have known his destination.

But then she remembered that Dr. Duncan had enjoined her not to take any letter or message to his wife under any circ.u.mstances whatever, so she replied: "It is very difficult for me, ma'am, to do as you wish. I have received such strict orders from my master not to carry any message from anyone to my mistress. Could you not call to-morrow, ma'am, when my master will be here."

"You stupid girl!" exclaimed Susan angrily, "do you not understand me? I tell you I have just seen your master; he knows that I am going to call on your mistress. Do you disbelieve my word?"

"No, ma'am, but--"

"But! But what?"

"I don't exactly know, ma'am, but--" the girl stammered, looking very confused and red, then suddenly her face brightened, and she exclaimed, "Ah! here is the nurse, ma'am; I will ask her about it."

For at that moment a comely-looking strong country girl came out of a door leading into the hall, carrying a little white bundle in her arms.

"Ah!" cried Susan, "is that dear Mrs. Duncan's little boy? Do let me see it!"

There could be no harm in allowing the strange lady to see the baby for a moment, at any rate, so the proud nurse drew back the clothes and disclosed a little sleeping face.

Susan felt her veins tingle with an excitement, the meaning of which she could not herself understand, as she approached and looked at the innocent features.

"Mary's child," she said, "Mary's child; dear me, how strange!" and she stooped to kiss him, as she knew it was her bounden duty to do, if she did not wish to offend the nurse beyond pardon, and so prejudice her chance of seeing the mother.

But just as her lips were about to touch the soft cheek, a sudden surprised cry from the housemaid made her raise her head again.

Then her cowardly spirit failed her, and she looked aghast at what was before her, motionless, save for the tremor that shook her frame.

A form more like a ghost than a living woman was hurrying down the stairs towards her, with arms outstretched, a form that seemed to glide rather than run, so evidently unconscious was its motion.

Clad merely in her white bed-clothes, with face as white as they, the mother was rushing to save her babe. Her expression was one of fixed intense horror; her lips were apart, her eyes dilated, but she spoke no word. She flew to the nurse and s.n.a.t.c.hed her infant into her arms, pressing it against her breast, palpitating with her frightful emotion.

She stood erect and firm, but trembling in every limb, staring at Susan with the same fixed look. Her white throat rose and fell convulsively with the choking sensations that prevented her from speaking.

She stood thus an awful image for many minutes, the frightened servants gazing at her open-mouthed, not knowing what to do. At last she spoke; she raised her arm, and pointing at Susan, cried in a voice that did not sound like her own, so strange and hollow it was, "Go! Go!"

Susan hesitated, and seemed to be about to speak, when the mother made a step towards her, with so menacing a gesture, with such fury in her eyes--altogether so different a being from the timid girl of old--that Susan was quite cowed, and lost her presence of mind. She shrank back and tried to smile, but she could not manage it; the grin as of a wild beast at bay, full of rage and mortal fear, was the only result.

"Go!" cried the mother again.

Susan felt that she was beaten, she could do no more, she looked round at the group, and then without a word slunk out of the door, which the housemaid, recovering her presence of mind, slammed indignantly behind her.

Mary hurried upstairs with the baby, saying nothing, and went into her bed-room, the two women following, full of simple sympathy, yet knowing not how to show it.

Then to their astonishment the poor mother, with frantic haste, yet with tender care, pulled the clothes off her child, and laid him on the bed.

With an eager anxiety that was painful to see, she examined all the little body, dreading lest she should find the small spot which showed that the accursed instrument of the Sisterhood had done its work.

But there was nothing to be seen. "Oh, my G.o.d! I thank Thee, I thank Thee. Oh, my G.o.d! My Christ," she cried, incoherently, as she fell weeping on the child, covering it with pa.s.sionate kisses. Then she rose and said wildly, "Jane! Jane! please look and see that there is no mark--no wound--nothing. I cannot see, my eyes are so dim. Please look carefully, and make quite, quite certain of it."

The nurse, thinking to humour her poor crazed mistress, pretended to examine the baby, though her own eyes were really as dim with tears as were the mother's. "No, ma'am, I a.s.sure you that there is nothing at all--nothing. The little darling is all right; but now you must go to bed, poor dear; you will be very ill if you don't. For your little baby's sake go to bed, and try and rest."

Mary, now as docile as a child, allowed herself to be put into her bed, and sobbed herself asleep--a broken slumber full of frightful dreams, from which she awoke into as painful a delirium.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE LAST OF SUSAN RILEY.

When Susan was outside Dr. Duncan's house, she walked away rapidly, careless whither, cursing and hating herself and all the world besides, in the sense of the ignominious manner of her failure in her plans.

She was not yet fifty yards from the house, when she perceived, hobbling towards her along the pavement, the same stooping, shabby, old woman whom she had observed near Mrs. Harris's shop a few days previously.

In her irritable mood, Susan would not move aside for the old creature, but pushed roughly against her as she pa.s.sed.

But to her surprise, the apparently feeble hag, instead of reeling aside, or even falling, as she had half expected her to do, suddenly extended her hand and seized Susan by the arm with so firm and nervous a grip that it stopped her short, notwithstanding the speed at which she was walking. Susan turned round fiercely to face her, and then was astonished to see every sign of decrepitude disappear from the woman who held her. The stooping back straightened; the hands no longer trembled with the weakness of extreme old age; it was a tall, middle-aged woman who stood erect before her; and she recognized the stern, pale face of Catherine King, whose eyes were looking intently into hers as if reading her inmost thoughts.

Unnerved by her recent discomfiture, Susan shrank beneath the strong grasp and keen eye of her former Chief, and was too startled by her unexpected appearance to speak a word.

These few months had worked a great change in the features of Catherine King. She appeared much older; her hair was much whiter; and though her eye had lost little of its old fire, the light in it was unnatural as of fever, and there were several signs about her to indicate that some slow but fatal disease had taken hold of her.

She was indeed broken-hearted. She had lost Mary and the Scheme--the only two affections in the whole world for her; so she had gone away, as a wounded wild beast does, to die alone in some out-of-the-way spot in the wilderness of London where no one knew her. When she changed her residence, she left behind her no clue by which she might be traced. She avoided even her one faithful friend, Sister Eliza, whose society was now painful to her for the memories it called up--a standing reproach.

For a few moments Catherine King looked into Susan's face, a bitter smile playing on her lips the while, then she addressed her.

"And what are you doing in this part of the world, my old a.s.sociate?"