“TAKE it, keep it, and let the poor sinner go!” Through long days and sleepless nights the words echoed and re-echoed in Lord Hardcastle’s ears. That they were spoken by an actual human voice he was positively certain, but all enquiries respecting the grey veiled figure proved fruitless, and from that time he saw her no more.
Very carefully and gently he broke the news of the restoration of Amy’s ring to Mr. Warden, feeling the necessity that every circumstance connected with their search should be known to him as it occurred, for who could tell what might happen next?
Mr. Warden listened very calmly to the strange story—
“It is the beginning of the end,” he said. “Heaven only knows what the end will be! Stranger things than this are, no doubt, in store for us. Keep the ring, Hardcastle, who can have a greater right than you to wear it?”
And Hardcastle kept the ring, and registered yet another vow in his own heart in much the same words he had vowed hand-in-hand with Frank Varley, that “by night and by day, by land and by sea, he would search the whole world through” to clear the name of the girl he loved.
Mr. Warden daily grew weaker and weaker. They rested a week at Boulogne, and then travelled by easy stages to Le Puy. After eight days’ quiet travelling they reached the picturesque old city, and though tired and worn out to the last degree, Mr. Warden insisted on being at once driven to a small quiet inn (it could scarcely be called hotel) situated half way between the town and his old mountain home.
“A l’Aigle des Montagnes” was the sign which hung over this quiet little hostelry, and its dedication could not possibly have been better chosen. Perched high in the second belt of rocks which surrounds Le Puy, it seemed incredible, when looked at from the plateau beneath, that aught but eagle’s wings could mount so far. A narrow, winding path, made to admit the “little cars” of the country, with not an inch to spare on either side, led to the inn. To an inexperienced traveller the road seemed terrible and dangerous, but the hardy, sure-footed mountaineer made but light of it. What to him was a precipice, first on this side, then on that, and occasionally on both? Once arrived at the summit the view was simply magnificent, bounded only by the distant Cevennes, and showing, in all its sparkling beauty, the windings of the Loire and its many tributaries.
Hither some twenty years previously Mr. Warden had first come, and with an artist’s appreciation of the grand and the beautiful, had returned again and again to paint the wild mountain scenery and ruined chateaux which were hung here and there like eagle’s nests among the rocks.
Since those old days the place had twice changed hands, and the present proprietor was totally unknown to him. Nevertheless the place and its surroundings could not fail to revive many bitter memories and days both sad and sweet to him, and on the second day after their arrival, Lord Hardcastle saw in him such a rapid change for the worse, that he at once gave orders that a doctor should be sent for from Le Puy.
“It is useless, Hardcastle,” said Mr. Warden, when he heard the order given. “No doctor can do anything for me now. Let them get me a few tonics, which I can prescribe for myself, so that I may rally for a few days, and pay a visit to my old home here. Open the window,” he added impetuously, “this soft, sweet air brings life back to me.”
Then Hardcastle placed for him a low easy chair close to the casement, whence he could look right and left upon the mountain panorama, and even catch a glimpse of a turret of his old chateau standing high among the distant rocks.
Mr. Warden gazed long and earnestly upon the magnificent landscape, drinking in every sight and sound, as a dying man might gaze upon some loved scene whose memory he wished to carry with him into eternity. Lord Hardcastle dared not disturb him, he leaned over the back of his chair without a word, and endeavoured, as far as possible, to follow the train of his thoughts.
Suddenly Mr. Warden turned his head and looked Hardcastle full in the face. He spoke excitedly, and his voice appeared almost to have regained its old strength and firmness.
“Hardcastle,” he said “you have done a great deal for me, I know you will do one thing more. It may be the last favour I shall ask of you. Come here, stand at my right. You see, just between those sugarloaf crags, the west turrets of my old home—the Chateau D’Albiac it was called in those days. It stands on the highest ground in Cassagnac. A little to the right there is a low well-cultivated valley, with about five or six peasants’ houses dotted here and there. In one of these Isola’s people lived, and there my darling Aimée was reared as her foster-child. Will you go there for me, and if you can find her, bring her here to me. I have one or two questions to ask, which she only can answer.”
“Gladly,” replied Hardcastle. “It has been my intention from the first to seek this woman out and question her. As soon as the doctor arrives, I will leave you in his charge, and set off without further delay.”
“No,” said Mr. Warden decisively, “you must set off at once; you do not know these mountain paths as I do, and to a stranger they are full of difficulties and dangers. Cassagnac is nearly six miles from here. You laugh at the distance. Five miles of these mountain paths is no light thing, I can assure you. If you start at once on one of the little mountain ponies, you will not arrive at Cassagnac till nearly sunset. Then you will have at least three miles further to go before you can get a night’s lodging, for you cannot possibly by any means return here until to-morrow.”
“Until to-morrow,” echoed Hardcastle sadly, and the thought flashed through his brain “what if he be not here to-morrow?”
Mr. Warden read his thoughts, “It is not so near as that Hardcastle,” he said quietly; “but it is not far away. Go at once, I implore you, for days and hours are getting precious to me now. Your doctor will be here before long; the people of the house are good and kind, and I feel at home with them. Go at once, I beg of you; let me not feel I have had my journey here for nothing. Ah! if my young strength would come back to me for one day, how gladly would I set off with you!” Then he leaned back in his easy chair wearied out, and once more begging Hardcastle to start immediately, closed his eyes as though he wished to sleep.
Hardcastle had no choice but to obey. He went at once to the innkeeper and his wife, and gave them strict orders to be constantly in and out of Mr. Warden’s room during his absence, and one to remain with him throughout the night. Then he wrote a few lines to the doctor, requesting him to remain until his return on the morrow. Even with these precautions his heart misgave him, and he could scarcely summon courage to start on his journey.
However, he felt further contention with Mr. Warden would be worse than useless—it would be positively injurious to him, so with another farewell glance at his friend, apparently sleeping quietly in the window seat, he set off on his little mountain pony.
Then it was that the Cevenol scenery burst upon him in all its wild grandeur. It was not one magnificent picture which met his eye, but a hundred or more, for every turn of the steep mountain path brought to view some fresh tableau of startling beauty. But the one thing which struck him most was the solitude, the intense silence which reigned everywhere. The rush and roar of the falling torrent, the scream of a distant wild bird, and once only the lowing of some oxen, evidently yoked to one of the rude cars of the country, these were the only sounds which broke the perfect stillness of the scene.
“Cassagnac,” he thought, “must be a very tiny village, for its highway to be so little frequented.” It had slipped his memory, so full it was of other thoughts, that none but the hardiest or poorest of the villagers would remain to face the terrible winter of these parts, when roads and valleys alike are choked with snow. In fact he was journeying on to a deserted village, for, by the end of November at latest, most of the peasants have taken refuge in more accessible localities.
Quietly and steadily the little pony kept on his way, never swerving an inch right or left; the gritty lava crunched under his feet, and now and then a huge boulder would fall from the path into the deep ravine below, with an echoing crash. Hardcastle had provided himself with a plan of the country,—a rudely sketched one, drawn out by the landlord of the “Aigle des Montagnes,” for the use of his guests—but he scarcely needed it, so well did the little pony know his road.
As the afternoon went on the Chateau D’Albiac stood out plainly in front of him. But although apparently so near it was yet some little distance off, for the pathway, ever mounting, took many curves and bends, and Lord Hardcastle found he could not possibly arrive there before twilight set in. The sun sank lower and lower, the shadows lengthened and deepened, and although the air for the time of year was remarkably balmy and mild, Hardcastle could not repress a shudder as he took the last curve which brought him face to face with the old chateau. Was it the silence and loneliness of the place which so oppressed him, or was it that his nerves had been shaken by the strange events through which he had lately passed? A feeling he could not understand took possession of his mind. He felt almost like a man walking in a dream, seeing strange sights and hearing strange sounds, so unreal, so unlike anything he had ever seen was the mountain picture around him. There, straight in front of him, stood the old chateau, the highest point in the rocky landscape. Every door barred, every window shut, not to be opened till the following spring. The sun sank lower and lower, the shadows lengthened and deepened, the rocks began to take fantastic shapes against the evening sky, lighted in the west by the long golden and purple streaks of the dying day. Not a sound broke the intense silence of the place, and Hardcastle, throwing the reins on his pony’s neck, in perfect stillness drank in the beauty and glory of the scene. The sun, with a farewell scarlet light, fired the windows of the old chateau, danced upon peaks and crags of fantastic shape, and sent a flood of glory upon two solitary female figures standing on one of the highest points of the worn-out volcanoes.
“I must be dreaming! It is a land of visions here; I have lost control over my own senses;” said Hardcastle, aloud, as he pressed forward to get a nearer view of what seemed to him an illusion. Two figures at such a time, in such a scene of loneliness and solitude! Nearer and nearer he drew. What did he see? Breathless and nerveless he leaned forward deprived alike of speech and power. Mountains, crags and sunlight swam before his eyes and faded away into mist, while the words of Mr. Warden, in the study of Harleyford, rang and echoed in his ears. “I can see her now—see her as she stood the first day I saw her in the lonely mountain country. Her feet on the black-red lava, the glowing sunset behind her head, her rich dark beauty flashing back every gold and crimson ray. The long white robe she wore, and the dark-faced nurse by her side.” There, straight in front of him, was the literal realization of the picture in all its details, for there, awe-struck and silent as himself, stood Amy Warden and Isola the nurse!