She answered eagerly:'I'll hold the reins while you run forward to the top of the ridge,and see if the road takes a favourable turn beyond.It would give the horse a few minutes'rest,and if you find out no change in the direction,we will retrace this lane,and take the other turning.'
The expedient seemed a good one in the circumstances,especially when recommended by the singular eagerness of her voice;and placing the reins in her hands--a quite unnecessary precaution,considering the state of their hack--he stepped out and went forward through the snow till she could see no more of him.
No sooner was he gone than Laura,with a rapidity which contrasted strangely with her previous stillness,made fast the reins to the corner of the phaeton,and slipping out on the opposite side,ran back with all her might down the hill,till,coming to an opening in the fence,she scrambled through it,and plunged into the copse which bordered this portion of the lane.Here she stood in hiding under one of the large bushes,clinging so closely to its umbrage as to seem but a portion of its mass,and listening intently for the faintest sound of pursuit.But nothing disturbed the stillness save the occasional slipping of gathered snow from the boughs,or the rustle of some wild animal over the crisp flake-bespattered herbage.
At length,apparently convinced that her former companion was either unable to find her,or not anxious to do so,in the present strange state of affairs,she crept out from the bushes,and in less than an hour found herself again approaching the door of the Prospect Hotel.
As she drew near,Laura could see that,far from being wrapped in darkness,as she might have expected,there were ample signs that all the tenants were on the alert,lights moving about the open space in front.Satisfaction was expressed in her face when she discerned that no reappearance of her baritone and his pony-carriage was causing this sensation;but it speedily gave way to grief and dismay when she saw by the lights the form of a man borne on a stretcher by two others into the porch of the hotel.
'I have caused all this,'she murmured between her quivering lips.
'He has murdered him!'Running forward to the door,she hastily asked of the first person she met if the man on the stretcher was dead.
'No,miss,'said the labourer addressed,eyeing her up and down as an unexpected apparition.'He is still alive,they say,but not sensible.He either fell or was pushed over the waterfall;'tis thoughted he was pushed.He is the gentleman who came here just now with the old lord,and went out afterward (as is thoughted)with a stranger who had come a little earlier.Anyhow,that's as I had it.'
Laura entered the house,and acknowledging without the least reserve that she was the injured man's wife,had soon installed herself as head nurse by the bed on which he lay.When the two surgeons who had been sent for arrived,she learned from them that his wounds were so severe as to leave but a slender hope of recovery,it being little short of miraculous that he was not killed on the spot,which his enemy had evidently reckoned to be the case.She knew who that enemy was,and shuddered.
Laura watched all night,but her husband knew nothing of her presence.During the next day he slightly recognized her,and in the evening was able to speak.He informed the surgeons that,as was surmised,he had been pushed over the cascade by Signor Smithozzi;but he communicated nothing to her who nursed him,not even replying to her remarks;he nodded courteously at any act of attention she rendered,and that was all.
In a day or two it was declared that everything favoured his recovery,notwithstanding the severity of his injuries.Full search was made for Smithozzi,but as yet there was no intelligence of his whereabouts,though the repentant Laura communicated all she knew.
As far as could be judged,he had come back to the carriage after searching out the way,and finding the young lady missing,had looked about for her till he was tired;then had driven on to Cliff-Martin,sold the horse and carriage next morning,and disappeared,probably by one of the departing coaches which ran thence to the nearest station,the only difference from his original programme being that he had gone alone.
During the days and weeks of that long and tedious recovery,Laura watched by her husband's bedside with a zeal and assiduity which would have considerably extenuated any fault save one of such magnitude as hers.That her husband did not forgive her was soon obvious.Nothing that she could do in the way of smoothing pillows,easing his position,shifting bandages,or administering draughts,could win from him more than a few measured words of thankfulness,such as he would probably have uttered to any other woman on earth who had performed these particular services for him.
'Dear,dear James,'she said one day,bending her face upon the bed in an excess of emotion.'How you have suffered!It has been too cruel.I am more glad you are getting better than I can say.Ihave prayed for it--and I am sorry for what I have done;I am innocent of the worst,and--I hope you will not think me so very bad,James!'
'Oh no.On the contrary,I shall think you very good--as a nurse,'
he answered,the caustic severity of his tone being apparent through its weakness.
Laura let fall two or three silent tears,and said no more that day.
Somehow or other Signor Smithozzi seemed to be making good his escape.It transpired that he had not taken a passage in either of the suspected coaches,though he had certainly got out of the county;altogether,the chance of finding him was problematical.
