Part 57

"Perhaps you'll take the jelly over for me, Aileen; I'll just step to the back door and holler to 'Lias to bring in the collie and the hound--'t isn't always safe to let the dogs out after dark if there should happen to be anything stirring in the quarry woods."

"I'll go," said Aileen. She went into the pantry to get the glass of jelly.

"We'll go with you, we won't mind a bit with you or Luigi," chorussed the twins.

"You don't go one step," said their mother, entering at that moment from the kitchen, and followed by the two dogs; "you'll stay right where you are, and what's more, you'll both go to bed early to make you remember that I mean what I say about your being out so long another time after sundown--no good comes of it," she muttered.

The twins knew by the tone of her voice that there was no further appeal to be made.

"You can wash up the dishes while Aileen's gone; my head is so bad.--Don't be gone too long, Aileen," she said, going to the door with her.

"I sha'n't stay unless I can do something--but I'll stop a little while with Ellen, poor girl; she must be tired of all this excitement, sitting there alone so much as she has this last week."

"Of course, but Aurora won't see you; it's as much as ever I can do to get a look at her, and as to speaking a word of comfort, it's out of the question.--Why!" she exclaimed, looking out into the dusk that was settling into night, "they never light the quarries so early, not with all the arc-lights, I wonder--Oh, Aileen!" she cried, as the meaning of the great illumination in The Gore dawned upon her.

The girl did not answer. She ran down the road to the bridge with every nerve in her strained to its utmost.

XIV

She hurried over to the brick house across the Rothel; rapped at the kitchen door and, upon the girl's opening it, gave the jelly to her with Mrs. Caukins' message. She assured Ellen, who begged her to come in, that she would run over if possible a little later in the evening. A low whine and prolonged snuffing made themselves audible while the two talked together in low tones at the door. They seemed to proceed from the vicinity of the dining-room door.

"Where's Rag?" said Aileen, listening intently to the muffled sounds.

"I shut him up in the dining-room closet when I see you come up the walk; he goes just wild to get with you any chance he can, and Mrs. Googe told me she wanted to keep him round the house nights."

"Then be careful he doesn't get out to-night--supposing you chain him up just for once."

"Oh, I couldn't do that; Mrs. Googe wouldn't let me; but I'll see he doesn't follow you. I do wish you would come in--it's so lonesome," she said again wistfully.

"I can't now, Ellen; but if I can get away after eight, I may run over and sit with you a while. I'm staying with Mrs. Caukins because the Colonel is away to-night."

"So I heard; 'Lias told me just now on his way down to the village. He said he wouldn't be gone long, for the Colonel wasn't to home.--I wonder what they've turned on all the lights for?" she said, craning her neck to look farther up the road.

Aileen made no reply. She cautioned her again to keep Rag at home. A series of muffled but agonized yelps followed her down the walk.

She stood still in the road and looked about her. Everywhere the great quarry arc-lights were sending their searching rays out upon the quarries and their approaches.

"What shall I do--oh, what shall I do!" was her hopeless unuttered cry.

It seemed to Aileen Armagh, standing there in the road at the entrance to the bridge, as if a powerful X-ray were being directed at that moment upon her whole life so far as she remembered it; and not only upon that, but upon her heart and soul--her thoughts, desires, her secret agony; as if the ray, in penetrating her body and soul, were laying bare her secret to the night:--she still loved him.

"Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do!" was the continual inner cry.

Life was showing itself to her in this experience, as seen through the lens of a quickened imagination, in all its hideousness. Never had she experienced such a sense of loneliness. Never had she realized so forcibly that she was without father and mother, without kin in a foreign country, without a true home and abiding-place. Never had it been brought home to her with such keen pain that she was, in truth, a waif in this great world; that the one solid support for her in this world, her affections, had been ruthlessly cut away from under her by the hand of the man she had loved with all the freshness and joy of her young loving heart. He had been all the more to her because she was alone; the day dreams all the brighter because she believed he was the one to realize them for her--and now!

She walked on slowly.

"What shall I do--what shall I do!" was her inward cry, repeated at intervals. She crossed the bridge. All was chaotic in her thoughts. She had supposed, during the last two months, that all her love was turned to hate,--she hoped it was, for it would help her to bear,--that all her feeling for him, whom she knew she ought to despise, was dead. Why, then, if it were dead, she asked herself now, had she spoken so vehemently to Luigi? And Luigi--where was he--what was he doing?

What was it produced that nervous shock when she learned the last truth from Dulcie Caukins? Was it her shame at his dishonor? No--she knew by the light of the X-ray piercing her soul that the thought of his imprisonment meant absence from her; after all that had occurred, she was obliged to confess that she was still longing for his presence. She hated herself for this confession.--Where was he now?

She looked up the road towards the quarry woods--Thank God, those, at least, were dark! Oh, if she but dared to go! dared to penetrate them; to call to him that the hours of his freedom were numbered; to help--someway, somehow! A sudden thought, over-powering in its intimation of possibilities, stopped her short in the road just a little way beyond the Colonel's; but before she could formulate it sufficiently to follow it up with action, before she had time to realize the sensation of returning courage, she was aware of the sound of running feet on the road above her. On a slight rise of ground the figure of a man showed for a moment against the clear early dark of the October night; he was running at full speed.

Could it be--?