Lady Audley's Secret

He drew a long breath--a sigh of relief at his release. It was all over now.

The fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought this, and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary fir-trees, the gravel paths, the smooth grass, and the great desolate-looking, red-brick mansion.

He was startled by the appearance of a woman running, almost flying, along the carriage-drive by which he had come, and waving a handkerchief in her uplifted hand.

He stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words.

"Is it me the flying female wants?" he exclaimed, at last. "You'd better stop, perhaps" he added, to the flyman. "It is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world's history. She may want me. Very likely I left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and Mr. Talboys has sent this person with it. Perhaps I'd better get out and go and meet her. It's civil to send my handkerchief."

Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure, which gained upon him rapidly.

He was rather short sighted, and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was.

"Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, "it's Miss Talboys."

It was Miss Talboys, flushed and breathless, with a woolen shawl thrown over her head.

Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw that she was very handsome. She had brown eyes, like George's, a pale complexion (she had been flushed when she approached him, but the color faded away as she recovered her breath), regular features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. He saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Talboys. There were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster--terribly bright and dry--and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him.

"Miss Talboys," he said, "what can I--why--"

She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand--she was holding her shawl in the other.

"Oh, let me speak to you," she cried--"let me speak to you, or I shall go mad. I heard it all. I believe what you believe, and I shall go mad unless I can do something--something toward avenging his death."

For a few moments Robert Audley was too much bewildered to answer her. Of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her thus.