There she had been with Henry Little, and seen him recognize his mother's picture; and now he was dead and gone. She had saved his life in vain; he was dead and gone. Every body was dead and gone.
She looked up at the glowing window. She looked down at the pool, with the moon kissing it.
She flung her arms up with a scream of agony, and sunk into the deep pool, where the moon seemed most to smile on it.
Directly after dinner Dr. Amboyne asked to see the unhappy correspondence of which he was to be the judge.
Raby went for the letters, and laid them before him. He took up the fatal letter. "Why, this is not written by Mrs. Little. I know her neat Italian hand too well. See how the letters slant and straggle."
"Oh! but you must allow for the writer's agitation."
"Why should I allow for it? YOU DIDN'T. Who can look at this scrawl, and not see that the poor heart-broken creature was not herself when she wrote it? This is not a letter, it is a mere scream of agony. Put yourself in her place. Imagine yourself a woman--a creature in whom the feelings overpower the judgment.
Consider the shock, the wound, the frenzy; and, besides, she had no idea that you left this house to get her husband the money from your own funds."
"She never shall know it either."
"She does know it. I have told her. And, poor thing, she thinks she was the only one to blame. She seeks your forgiveness. She pines for it. This is the true cause of her illness; and I believe, if you could forgive her and love her, it might yet save her life."
"Then tell her I blame myself as much as her. Tell her my house, my arms, and my heart are open to her. Amboyne, you are a true friend, and a worthy man. God bless you. How shall we get her here, poor soul? Will you go for her, or shall I?"
"Let me sleep on that," said Dr. Amboyne.
In the course of the evening, Dr. Amboyne told Raby all the reports about Jael Dence and Henry Little.
"What does that matter now?" said Raby, with a sigh.
Whenever a servant came into the room, Amboyne asked him if Jael had arrived.
Raby shared his curiosity, but not his anxiety. "The girl knows her friends," said he. "She will have her cry out, you may depend; but after that she will find her way here, and, when she has got over it a little, I shall be sure to learn from her whether he was her lover, and where he was when the place was blown up. A Dence never lies to a Raby."
But when nine o'clock struck, and there were no tidings of her, Raby began to share the doctor's uneasiness, and also to be rather angry and impatient.
"Confound the girl!" said he. "Her grandfathers have stood by mine, in their danger and trouble, for two hundred years; and now, in her trouble, she slinks away from me."
"Put yourself in her place," said Amboyne. "Ten to one she thinks you are offended about her and Henry. She is afraid to come near you."
"What, when I ask her?"
"Through your stupid lazy servants, who, to save themselves trouble, have very likely told somebody else to tell her; and we know what comes of that process. Ten to one the invitation has either missed her altogether, or come to her divested of all that is kind and soothing. And remember, she is not a man. She is a poor girl, full of shame and apprehension, and needs a gentle encouraging hand to draw her here. Do, for once, put yourself in a woman's place--you were born of a woman."
"You are right," said Raby. "I will send down a carriage for her, with a line in my own hand."
He did so.
At eleven the servant came back with the news that Jael Dence was not at home. She had been seen wandering about the country, and was believed to be wrong in her head. George, the blacksmith, and others, were gone up to the old church after her.
"Turn out with torches, every man Jack of you, and find her," said Raby.
As for Raby and Amboyne, they sat by the fireside and conversed together--principally about poor Mrs. Little; but the conversation was languid.
A few minutes after midnight a terrible scream was heard. It was uttered out of doors, yet it seemed to penetrate the very room where Raby and Amboyne were seated. Both men started to their feet. The scream was not repeated. They looked at each other.
"It was in my garden," said Raby; and, with some little difficulty, he opened the window and ran out, followed by Amboyne.
They looked, but could see nothing.
But, with that death-shriek ringing in their ears, they wasted no time. Raby waved Amboyne to the left, and himself dashed off to the right, and they scoured the lawn in less than a minute.
A cry of horror from Raby! He had found the body of a woman floating in a pool of the river, head downward.
He dashed into the water directly and drew it to the bank; Dr.
Amboyne helped him, and they got it out on dry land. The face was ghastly, the body still.
"Turn her face downward," said Amboyne, "give her every chance.
Carry her gently."
One took the shoulders, the other the feet; they carried her slowly in and laid her gently down before the fire.
She lay like dripping marble.
Her clothes clinging tightly round her, revealed her marvelous form and limbs of antique mold--but all so deadly still.
Amboyne kneeled over her, searching, in vain, for some sign of life.
He groaned.
"Oh!" said he, "is it possible that such a creature as this can be cut off in its prime?"
"Dead!" cried Raby, trembling all over. "Oh, God forbid! One of her ancestors saved a Raby's life in battle, another saved a Raby in a foaming flood; and I couldn't save her in a dead pool! She is the last of that loyal race, and I'm the last Raby. Farewell, Dence!
Farewell, Raby!"
While he bemoaned her thus, and his tears actually dripped upon her pale face, Amboyne detected a slight quivering in the drowned woman's throat.
"Hush?" said he to Raby.
There was a pair of old-fashioned bellows by the side of the fire;
Amboyne seized them, and opened Jael's mouth with more ease than he expected. "That is a good sign," said he.