The Shadow of a Sin

At ten that night she must go. She had run away from home once before. Then she had been blinded, tempted and persuaded – then she had believed herself going straight into the fairyland of love and happiness; but now it was all changed. She was running away once more; but this time she was leaving all the hope, all the happiness of her life behind her.

It was well for her that the dull stupor of exhaustion fell over her, or the pain she was suffering must have killed her. She did not know how the time passed. It was like one long, cruel dream of anguish, until the summons came for luncheon. Then she went down stairs. Adrian was not there – that was some consolation. She looked quickly around the room.

"How could I look on his face and live, knowing that I shall see it no more?" she said to herself.

It was like a horrible travesty – the movements of the servants, the changing of the dishes, Lady Vaughan's anxiety about the cold chicken, Sir Arthur's complaint about the wine, while her heart was breaking, and Claude lay in the prison from which she must free him.

Lady Vaughan was very kind to her. She expressed great concern at seeing her look so ill – tried to induce her to eat some grapes – told her that Adrian was coming to dinner, and would bring some friends with him; then said a few words about Claude, pitied his mother, yet blamed her for not bringing him up better, and the ordeal was over.

Hyacinth went away from the dining-room with a faint, low moan.

"How shall I bear it?" she said – "how shall I live through it?"

It was two o'clock then. How were the long hours to be passed? How was she to bear the torture of her own thoughts? Whither could she go for refuge? Suddenly it occurred to her that she had no money. How was she to travel in England without some?

She did not give herself time for thought; if she had, her courage would have failed her. She went to Sir Arthur's room and tapped at the door. The tremulous, feeble voice bade her enter. Sir Arthur was writing some letters. She went up to him.

"Grandpa," she said, "I have no money – and I want some. Will you give me a little, please?"

He looked at her in surprise – she had never made such a request to him before.

"Money, child," he repeated – "of course you shall have some. You want to buy some trinkets – something for Adrian. What shall I give you – ten – twenty pounds?"

"Twenty, if you please."

He drew a small cash-box near to him, and counted twenty bright sovereigns into her hand.

"Five more, for luck!" he said with a smile. "Always come to me when you want money, Hyacinth."

She kissed him – he was so kind, and she had to leave him so soon.

"Good girl," he said. "You will be very happy, Hyacinth. Adrian Darcy is the noblest man in the wide world."

She turned aside with a groan. Alas! Adrian Darcy was to be nothing to her – in this terrible future that was coming he would have no place. Then she went to her own room, and sat there mute and still. Pincott came to dress her, and the girl went through her toilet mechanically. She never remembered what dress she wore. The maid asked something about it, and Hyacinth looked up with a vague, dreamy expression.

"It does not matter – anything will do," she said, almost wondering that people could think of such trifles when life and death were in the balance.

"There has been a lover's quarrel," thought Pincott, "and my young lady does not care how she looks."

When the bell rang Hyacinth went down. How she suffered when she looked in her lover's face and listened to his voice, knowing it was for the last time! She did not even hear the name of his friends, when they were introduced to her. She sat wondering whether any one living had ever gone through such torture before – wondering why it did not kill her; and then it seemed to her but two or three minutes before dinner was over. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon – two of the visitors – suggested that they should go out into the grounds; and Adrian, delighted at the chance of a tête-à-tête with Hyacinth, gladly consented. In after years she liked to recall this last interview.

"Let us walk to the waterfall," said Adrian. "I shall have a photograph taken of it, Cynthy, because it reminds me so much of you."

She said to herself he would not when he knew all – that he would hate it, and would not think of the place. They sat down in the old favorite resort. Suddenly she turned to him, and clasped his hand with one of hers.

"Adrian," she asked, "do you love me very much?"

The face bent over her afforded answer sufficient.

"Love you?" he replied. "I do not think, Hyacinth, that I could love you more; to me it does not seem possible."

"If you were to lose me, then, it would be a great sorrow?"

"Lose you!" he cried. "Why, Cynthy, I would rather ten thousand times over lose my own life."

She liked to remember afterward how he drew her head upon his breast – how he caressed her and murmured sweet words of tenderness to her – how he told her of his love in such ardent words that the fervor of them lasted with her until she died. It was for the last time. A great solemn calm of despair fell over her. To-morrow she would be far away; his arm would never enfold her, his eyes never linger on her, his lips never touch her more. It was for the last time, and she loved him better than her life; but for her sin and folly, she would now have been the happiest girl in the wide world.

"My darling," he murmured, "as though weak words could tell how dear you are to me."

He kissed her trembling lips and then she broke from him with a great cry. She could bear no more. She fled through the pine grove, crying to herself with bitter tears: "If I could but die! Oh, Heaven, be merciful to me, and let me die!"

CHAPTER XIX

"Good-night, Hyacinth," Lady Vaughan said, when, half an hour afterward, the girl went to her with a white face and cold rigid lips; "good-night. I hope to see you something like yourself to-morrow – you do not seem well."

And for the last time, Hyacinth Vaughan kissed the fair, stately old face. "To-morrow – ah, where would she be to-morrow?"

"You have been very kind to me," she murmured, "and I am not ungrateful."

Afterward Lady Vaughan understood why the girl lingered near her, why she kissed the withered, wrinkled hands with such passionate tenderness, why her lips opened as if she would fain speak, and then closed mutely. She thought of Hyacinth's strange manner for several minutes after the young girl had quitted the room.

"That terrible news shocked her. She is very sensitive and very tender-hearted – the Vaughans are all the same. I am heartily glad she is to marry Adrian: he is gentle enough to understand and firm enough to manage her. I shall have no more anxiety about the child."

Hyacinth had looked her last on them, and had spoken to them for the last time. She stood in her room now waiting until there should be a chance of leaving the hotel unnoticed, then it suddenly struck her how great would be the consternation on the morrow, when she was missed. What would Adrian do or say – he who loved her so dearly? She went to her little desk and wrote a note to him. She addressed it and left it on the toilet table of her room.

Then she went quietly down-stairs. No one was about. She opened the great hall-door and went out. Some few people still lingered in the grounds; she was not noticed. She walked down the long carriage-drive, and then stood in the street of the little town, alone. She found her way to the station. A great, despairing cry was rising from her heart to her lips, but she stifled it, a faint strange sensation, as though life were leaving her, came over her. She nerved herself.

"I must live until he is free," she said with stern determination – "then death will be welcome!"

They were no idle words that she spoke; all that life held brightest, dearest, and best, was past for her. Her only hope was that she might reach Loadstone in time to save Claude. She knew how soon she would be missed, and how easily she might be tracked. Suppose that they sent or went to her room and found it empty, and then made inquiries and learned that she had taken a ticket for Ostend? They could not overtake the train, but they could telegraph to Ostend and stop her. In that case she would be too late to save Claude. The station was full of people. She saw a lad among them – he seemed to be about fifteen – and she went up to him.

"Are you going to Ostend?" she asked.

He doffed his hat and bowed.

"I am going by this train," he replied. "Can I be of any service to the Fraulein?"

"I am always nervous in a crowd," she said – "will you buy my ticket?"

He took the money. He could not see her face, for it was veiled, but he could distinguish its white, rigid mystery, and, full of wonder, he complied with her request. In a short time he returned with the ticket.

"Can I do anything else for you, Fraulein?" he asked.

"No," she replied, thanking him; and all the way to Ostend, the lad mused over the half-hidden beauty of that face, and the dreary tones of the sad young voice.

"There is some mystery," he said; and afterward, when he had read the papers, he knew what the mystery was.

She was safely seated in the furthest corner of a second-class carriage at last, her heart beating so that each throb seemed to send a thrill of fiery pain through her. Would she be in time? The train was an express, and was considered an unusually fast one, but it seemed slow to her – so slow. Her heart beat fast and her pulse throbbed quickly. Her face burned as with a flaming fire.