"Sir, I have told you--save me. We were seen last night, the clue was
followed up, and we were surprised an hour ago in our most secret
meeting-place. Three of us were taken--all would have been but for the
darkness, and that we knew so well each winding of the place. Where the
others are I do not know. Sir, help me! I am penniless, your
police--blood-hounds!--are on my track. Every moment that I stay here
makes the danger greater. To-day I am a creature you hate, scorn,
shrink from; but yesterday I was the woman you loved--help me, then! I
am young to die--I saved you! Answer, will you save me?"
"I will help you," said George Brudenell, quietly.
* * * * *
Time has effaced many things from Doctor Brudenell's memory, but it can
never blot out his mental picture of that night--the drive through the
silent street to the distant railway-station, from which a train could
be taken to carry them to the sea, the waiting through the dragging
hours until the tardy dawn broke, the fear, the stealth, the suspicion,
the watching, the rapid flight through the early morning, that ended
only when the blue water--so cruelly bright, untroubled, and tranquil
it looked!--was audible and visible. Not a word had he spoken to his
companion through the night, nor did either of them break silence until
they stood upon the deck of the vessel which was to bear her to the New
World which has rectified so many of the mistakes of the Old.
The deck was being cleared of those who were to return to the shore,
when, for the last time, she turned her beautiful eyes upon his face.
"Farewell, Monsieur," she said, quietly; and he echoed:
"Farewell, Mademoiselle."
* * * * *
Good Mrs. Jessop never discovered which patient it was to whom her
master had been called in the dead of the night, and who had kept him
away for the best part of twenty-four hours; and she never could
understand what that "foreign young woman"--a person concerning whom
she was for a long time exceedingly voluble and bitter--could possibly
mean by running off in that scandalous way. But there were several
other things that Mrs. Jessop did not understand--for instance, why the
doctor for the next few weeks lost his appetite so completely, was so
"snappish and short," and seemed to care for nothing but the newspaper;
and she was quite scandalized when he actually spent a whole day, as
she, by dint of judiciously "pumping" Patrick, contrived to ascertain,
in attending the trial of those "horrid wretches of dynamitards," where
he heard the case, and heard the sentence of five years' penal
servitude passed upon a gray-haired man with a scar upon his cheek.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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