was free, she was free! that happy thought beat time in Lily's heart to her wildly rushing feet. She was outside of that horrible prison, old Haidee was locked in, and could not pursue her, old Peter could not return for several hours. She had that much time in advance of them. Only a few miles lay between her and her loved home. Surely, surely, with the start she had she could distance her enemies and reach the haven of rest for which she yearned and prayed.
She ran on and on, her brain reeling, her heart beating almost to suffocation, the perspiration running down her face in streams.
Sheer exhaustion at last caused her to slacken her pace and look behind her at the lonely stretch of road over which her flying feet had swiftly carried her. The old house in which she had passed such awful hours was out of sight; a turn in the road had hidden it from view. No baleful pursuer was on her track yet. She turned and looked before her. A long stretch of country road, dotted here and there with poor-looking houses, lay ahead. She wet her handkerchief in a rill that trickled by the side of the road, bound it about her throbbing head, and set forward again, steadily, but at a less swinging pace than she had used before. Exhausted nature could not hold out at the rapid rate with which she had begun.
On and on she went through the blistering sunshine. Her head ached, the hot road burnt her feet, the warm wind blew the dust into her strained and weary eyes. No matter—she did not heed these trifling things. She was free! That was the glad refrain to which her bounding heart kept time. She was so happy she could not realize her great physical weakness and weariness.
It seemed to her at last that hours had passed since she had set forth on her journey, carefully following some directions Fanny Colville had given her. The houses and lots began to stand nearer together. She was getting nearer to the great city. She began to be afraid that she would meet old Peter Leveret returning to his home after his errand to Doctor Pratt.
At last she came to a little house standing apart from the others. She peeped in and saw an elderly woman sitting at the open door sewing on a coarse garment, and singing blithely at her task. She opened the gate and went up to her.
"Will you let me come in and rest, and have a drink of water?" said she, gently. "I am very tired!"
The woman looked up in surprise. God knows what she thought of the poor girl standing there bareheaded and dusty, in her blue morning dress, looking so drooping and weary, but she moved aside and said kindly:
"Yes! dear heart, come in and rest, and have a bit and a sup—you look as if you needed all three."
The kind words and gentle smile went to the lonely girl's heart. Tears started into her eyes as she took the offered glass of water and drained it thirstily.
"I thank you, I do not wish anything to eat," she answered wearily, "but if you will give me an old bonnet I will be glad—I have no bonnet, you see—and an old dress, for I do not wish to go into the city with this morning-dress—I will pay you well, indeed I will. See, I will give you my diamond ring."
The woman started in surprise as her strange visitant turned the costly ring upon her finger.
"Here is some strange mystery," she thought within herself. "The girl is running away, mayhap, and wants a disguise."
She went to a closet, and brought out an old straw hat and thick veil, and a long, light sack somewhat worn.
"I will not take your ring, my dear," she said kindly. "You may take these things, though, and welcome. Maybe I am doing wrong in helping you to run away, but then again I may be doing you a great kindness. You look very forlorn, my poor dear."
Lily went to work in a dazed kind of way putting on the long sack over her dress and the hat on her head. This done she wound the thick veil tightly over her face and turned to go.
"I thank you for your kindness, my good woman," she said. "I will come back here some time and reward you richly, I will indeed. Now I am going. If anybody comes here to ask about me be sure and tell them I have not been here. Do not let them know–"
Whatever else she was going to say died unuttered on her pale lips. Exhausted nature was giving away. She threw up her hands wildly, staggered forward a step, and fell fainting on the floor.
"Poor soul," said the good woman, kneeling down on the floor, and loosening the hat and veil from her head, "she is dead tired-out."
She straightened Lily out upon the floor, and dashed cold water into her white face, but with no success. The swoon was a deep one, and it was fully an hour before the girl was sufficiently revived to be lifted up by the woman's strong arms and laid upon a clean white bed.
"A beauty and no mistake," thought the warm-hearted creature, smoothing back the damp, golden ringlets from the marble white brow on the pillow.
Lily's large, blue eyes opened and looked up at her in amaze.
"Am I sick? Have I been here long?" she inquired, struggling up to a sitting posture and looking out through the window anxiously. "Why, the sun is setting," said she, turning her bewildered face on her kind attendant.
"Yes, you fainted and were a long time coming to," was the answer: "you have been here more than an hour."
Lily slipped down from the bed and began to put on her hat and veil with trembling hands.
"I must be going," she said; "I have far to go yet, and it is growing so late."
Before the astonished woman could remonstrate, she was out of the house, going slowly on her way. She was so weak she could not walk very fast. Her impetuous will alone sustained her dragging footsteps. Thick twilight had fallen before she entered the busy, bustling city. Sorely frightened at finding herself alone in the gathering darkness, yet afraid that the glare of the gaslights would reveal her shrinking form to her pursuers, she shrank along in the friendly shadows, drawing back nervously from the hurrying forms that brushed past her, and trembling at every footstep behind her. But in spite of her nervousness she at length entered the elegant street where her father resided.
All was gaiety and life in the brilliant houses as she hurried past them. The light from the drawing-rooms streamed out upon her shrinking form.
Wild and entrancing strains of music filled the night air. Long lines of carriages were drawn up in front of some of the houses whose owners were holding balls and receptions. She knew them all; they were all friends of hers: but she flitted past them like a spirit, pausing not in her frightened yet happy course until she stood before the windows of her father's handsome mansion.
These windows were lighted, too, but not so brightly as some; music, too, stole through them, but it was soft and subdued. Death had been there so recently they had not the heart to be gay, she thought.
Wild with her joy she threw off her disguising hat and veil and running up the broad, marble steps rang the bell. It was opened by the stately old servitor whom she had been accustomed to from childhood. But instead of welcoming her home, the gray-haired old man fled wildly down the hall after one glance into her lovely white face.
"He takes me for a ghost," she thought, laughing and running after him down the wide hall till she reached the drawing-room door which stood open for coolness that sultry night.
She stopped in the doorway, framed like a picture in the hall gaslights, and looked into the room.
They were all there before her—her dear ones! The piano stood in the center of the room, its back towards her, with Mrs. Vance on the music-stool, directly facing her. Her white hands strayed over the pearl keys, and Lancelot Darling stood beside her, and turned the leaves of her music.
A low divan was drawn near them, and Ada rested upon it, looking very fair and ethereal in her deep mourning dress. Her father sat beside her looking very grave and sad.
"Papa, papa!" cried poor Lily in a choking voice.
The passionate cry, low as it was, was distinctly heard by the quartette. They all looked up and saw her standing there in the light with her wild, white face and streaming golden hair.
CHAPTER XIII
The group in the drawing-room gazed at Lily for a moment in mingled awe and consternation, but suddenly,