Chapter XIV: Discovery of the Flight

She was a form of life and light,
That soon became a part of night,
And rose where’er I turned my eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!
And she was lost—and yet I breathed,
But not the breath of common life!
A serpent round my heart was wreathed
And stung my every thought to strife.—_Byron._

It snowed all night. The ground was covered two feet deep; and it was still snowing when the family at River-view arose and went about their morning-business.

First, old Nero, who slept in the house and performed the duties of waiter, crept down into the breakfast-parlor to open the windows and light the fire.

He found great difficulty in forcing back the shutters, that were blocked up with drifts of snow. And when at last he succeeded in pushing them open, the snow-shrouded earth that broke cold and white upon his sight, filled him with dismay.

“Well, I ‘clar’,” he cried, in wrath—“ef dis winter ain’t jes’ like human nater! It knows how dis is its last chance, cause spring is most here, and so it’s a-doin’ of its darndest! How am I gwine to haul wood to keep up de fires t’rough dis yere?”

“Oh hush! long o’ yer perfane grumblin’ at de doin’s o’ Marster in hebben!” exclaimed Keziah, who just at this moment entered the parlor.

“Yes, you may preach, but whar I gwine to get wood to keep all dese yer fires a-goin’?”

“Yer ought always to have wood nuff on hand! Ef I seed to keepin’ of de house no better ’an you see to your dooty, things ud be at a putty pass. I gwine to take _dis_ anyways, and you must do as yer likes,” retorted Keziah, laying hold of an armful of light wood.

“Hey! stop dat you! it’s for kindlin’ de parlor-fire.”

“An’ I wants um for kindle Miss Adely’s fire! You t’ink the likes o’ _she_ kin git up ’doubt a fire?” cried Keziah, in defiance, as she seized the billets and fled from the room, leaving old Nero first to rave at her effrontery, and then to go out in the snow in search of more fuel.

Very softly, meanwhile, Keziah ascended the stairs and entered the deserted chamber of her young mistress.

“She is still asleep,” said Keziah, glancing at the white curtains of her bed that were still closed.

She softly put down her billets of wood, raked together the embers, kindled the fire and swept the hearth. In all this, she unavoidably made some noise, and thereupon grew uneasy lest she should disturb the slumberer, who had, the night previous, gone to bed with a nervous headache.

“How _sound_ she do sleep!” said Keziah, glancing at the motionless white curtains, as she left the room to bring fresh water.

She re-entered, filled the ewers, making an inevitable rattling with the crockery ware, and glancing anxiously at the bed. Then with some effort and more noise she hoisted the windows, and pushed open the shutters, sending down great drifts of snow, and letting in a flood of clouded light.

“How _long_ she do sleep!” said Keziah, approaching the bed, and softly putting aside the curtains, for the purpose of gazing upon the beloved slumberer.

That bed, it is needless to say, was empty!

“My gracious! She hasn’t slept in dis all night! I ‘specks ole mist’ess has been sick, and she’s been sittin’ up wid her! Why couldn’t dey o’ called _me_?” said Keziah, with an injured air, as she hurried from this chamber into that of her old mistress.

“You may mend my fire, and hand me my wadded wrapper, Keziah, as I shall get up at once,” said Lady Elizabeth, who was lying awake.

“Yes, ma’am; I hopes you finds yourself better dis morning, ma’am,” said Keziah, looking around, expecting to find Lady Adelaide wrapped up in a shawl, and dozing in an easy chair.

“Better? Why, I am well enough! What do you mean?”

“Why, I thought how you was ill in de night, ma’am, as de reason why Miss Adely stayed long o’ you.”

“Adelaide stayed with me? Why, Adelaide has not been with me! What on earth are you thinking about, girl?”

“Miss Adely not along o’ you all night!” cried Keziah, opening her eyes wide with astonishment.

“Why, _no_! What is the matter? Are you crazy?” exclaimed her mistress, impatiently.

“Well, ma’am, all I can say is, as how Lady Adelaide must be sperrited away, case she nebber slept in her own room last night!” said Keziah, in alarm.

“Never slept in her own room last night!” ejaculated Lady Elizabeth.

“No, ma’am; she didn’t.”

Lady Elizabeth’s look of astonishment gradually changed to one of enlightenment, as she said—

“Oh, very well! I dare say it is all right. And now help me on with my wrapper, and go down and see that the parlor is well warmed and the breakfast ready. I shall be down almost immediately.”

Keziah hurried below stairs to do her mistress’s bidding.

And in half an hour afterwards, when the lady descended to the breakfast-parlor, she found the room glowing with the genial warmth and light of a great hickory fire, that blazed upon the hearth, and the table smoking with fragrant coffee and an abundant breakfast, which, together with all the other home comforts, enabled the family to bid defiance to the depressing effects of the inclement weather without.

Orville Deville stood with his back to the fire, and his eyes fixed carelessly on the English paper in his hands.

“Good morning, Orville! I regret to have kept you waiting, my son. Sit down at once: but where is Adelaide?”

“She has not yet come down, I believe, madam,” said Mr. Deville, placing a chair for his mother.

“I hope she has quite recovered of her headache,” said the lady.

“I hope so, too. I have not seen her this morning. Keziah, has your young mistress got over her indisposition?” asked Mr. Deville, turning towards the waiting-woman.

“I dunno, sir; _I’ve_ not seen Miss Adely this morning, nyther,” said the abigail, in dismay.

“_You_ not seen her, Keziah!” said Mr. Deville.

“You not seen her, Orville!” exclaimed Lady Elizabeth.

“How could I see her, when she wa’n’t nowheres?” said Keziah.

“What in the world is the meaning of all this?” inquired Mr. Deville, looking from the mistress to the maid.

“She did not occupy her room last night, Keziah tells me, and she has not been seen this morning, as it appears,” exclaimed Lady Elizabeth, in turn.

“Is it possible! what can it mean?” cried Orville; then, quickly controlling himself, he said, “nonsense! there can be nothing amiss. She is in some other room—in the library or the pantry. Go and look for your young mistress, Keziah, and stop gaping and staring! We live in a humdrum neighborhood, far from thieves and assassins, woman! Come, hurry! I will warrant that we find Lady Adelaide dropped asleep in the library over some old book, or else with the cook in the pantry, in close discussion of some dish that requires long and careful preparation. Go you to the lower dominions, while I ascend to the higher.”

And without another instant’s delay, Mr. Deville hurried from the breakfast-room.

The search began. Vain search! Adelaide was not in the library, nor in the pantry, nor in any of the chambers of the house, nor at any of the cabins about the plantation. No one could find even a trace of her. The servants of the farm were mustered and questioned—no one had seen or heard of her since the preceding day. The family became dreadfully alarmed. They, without a single clue to the cause of her disappearance, were lost in the most painful conjecture.

“How forgetful and thoughtless we are!” at length exclaimed Orville—“for while we have been searching elsewhere, she may have returned quietly to her chamber. Let us search there again.”

A plan no sooner suggested than followed up. They hurried to her chamber. It was deserted as before.

They looked around for some sign to guide them to her fate. The letter lying upon the centre-table caught the eye of Orville. He snatched it up. It was directed in her hand to himself. He tore it open, glanced over the first few lines, flushed darkly-red, then turned deadly-pale and crushing the letter in his hand, said—

“Dear mother, pray take these women out, and wait for me a few minutes in the parlor, where I will soon join you.”

“But that letter, Orville?” said the lady, anxiously.

“It is from her to me—it explains her absence: it requires to be read alone.”

“But her—Adelaide! what of her?”

“Safe, I hope! Dear mother, give me opportunity to read and reflect! I will join you in the parlor in a few minutes.”

The lady, full of wonder and anxiety, called off her women, and retreating, left her son alone.

He threw himself into the chair, by her writing-table, and again took her letter, smoothed it out, spread it before him and read it—this time carefully, and from beginning to end.

She began by assuring him that his happiness had been the dearest object of her life, and begging him to forgive her, if all these years she had ignorantly remained an obstacle to that very happiness. She entreated him to judge leniently those well-meaning but mistaken parents who had so unjustly forced upon his life an unnatural and hateful bond. She told him that she left with the intention of remaining away forever, that by her abandonment of him, he should be able to free himself, legally, from all engagements to her. And with her usual exquisite sense of delicacy, she refrained from mentioning the name or even alluding to the existence of Lionne. She concluded with the most affectionate messages to his mother, and the most fervent wishes for his own welfare. And she signed herself his “true friend and cousin, Adelaide Lorne.”

Orville had no reason, either from her letter or from any other circumstance, to suppose that she suspected the existence of Lionne. But he remembered his long neglect of her as his bride, and he ascribed her letter and her subsequent flight to wounded love and womanly pride. He cursed his own sin and bewailed his own follies that had separated him from her.

And if before this he had been in doubt of the strength, earnestness, and exclusiveness of his attachment to Adelaide—from this moment at least, he knew that he loved her with all the passion of his soul.

And now to seek and bring her back and make her know that he did so. But—_where_ to seek her? where had she passed this night of storm, and where was she this morning? To what point should his first inquiries be directed?

Evidently the servants of the house and farm could give him no information.

He passed in rapid, mental review, all the possible places in which she might have spent the night. No place seemed so likely to have been her temporary shelter as Bush Creek, the deserted home of the Kytes. To that place he resolved immediately to go. He arose from the table and was about to leave the room to inform his mother and to order his horse, when his eyes were arrested by an object that seemed to possess the power of the Medusa’s head to turn the gazer into stone!

It was the mourning-ring with which he had wed Lionne, lying on the corner of the dressing-table, where that wild girl had left it.

For a moment he stood as if petrified, and then he snatched it up to see if there was not some mistake. There could be none! It was the very same ring, with his father’s name on the inside. While wondering at its presence there, his eyes fell upon a crumpled paper on the same dressing-table. Some instinct led him to take it up and examine it. He smoothed it out and read it.

It was his own letter to Lionne.

He understood every thing now.

He knew that _she_ knew all. Yes, though with her delicate sense of propriety she had not even hinted at her knowledge of her rival, yet it was evident that she had been made acquainted with the relations existing between himself and Lionne.

But how had this knowledge been conveyed to her? Who had sent and who had brought the ring and the letter? He would inquire. He rang the bell vociferously.

Keziah answered it.

“Keziah, come in here, and shut the door after you.”

Keziah obeyed.

“Now, tell me, did any stranger come here yesterday?”

“While yer was all at dinner, a sort o’ wild looking young gal came here as said she brought news o’ Miss Kate Kyte, and how she wanted to see Miss Adely in her own room. I showed her up and stayed to watch her until I heard Miss Adely coming up to dress for her ride. Then I went into your room to fix things up.”

“How long did this woman stay?”

“’Deed I dunno, sir! not long I reckon, caze I nebber saw no more of her. And Miss Adely’s headache an’ other things a-happening of, put her out of my mind until you spoke.”

“You may go.”

Keziah immediately retired to tell the colored folks below that a crazy girl, who had been at the house the evening before, had bewitched and spirited away Miss Adely.

“Yes,” said Orville, when left alone, “Lionne has pursued me, has found out my previous marriage, and has told Adelaide every thing, and has proved all that she has told! The young forest-demon! she shall gain nothing by it! Oh, accursed sin! how bitter are your fruits! Hear Adelaide! Sweet angel! where are you now, exposed to this inclement weather! Oh, I must not stay to ask! I must find you at once.” And so saying Orville hurried from the chamber and descended to the breakfast-parlor, where, his mother sat anxiously awaiting him.

Not wishing for the present to communicate to her the full extent of his sins, misfortunes and apprehensions, he merely placed the farewell letter of Adelaide in her hands, saying—

“This will partly explain her absence, my dear mother. I hope to heaven that she is safe! I am going immediately to seek her.”

And while Lady Elizabeth eagerly opened the letter, Orville rang and ordered his horse to be saddled and brought to the door.

“Dear! dear! dear! what a dreadful thing! Wounded love and jealously and pride! I cannot wonder! There never was a fair bride so cruelly ignored and neglected!” said his mother, naturally coming to the very same conclusion to which on first reading the letter Orville himself had come.

“It is perfectly incredible—your indifference to that sweet girl!” continued the lady.

“But I am _not_ indifferent to her, mother! I am very far from being so! I love her! with my whole heart and soul I love her!” exclaimed the young man, his pallid brow, quivering lip, and thrilling tone indubitably attesting the truth of his statement.

“You do! Well, I must say that you take an unprecedented way of showing it!” said the lady, with pardonable sarcasm. “Where is she now? And when you find her, you will not find it so easy to reconcile her. It is proverbially difficult to estrange a woman’s heart. But, mark my words—it is next to impossible to win it back!”

“Oh, madam, I shall try, and I shall succeed. But here is Nero, to tell me that my horse is ready. I go first to inquire at Bush Creek, where I hope to find Lady Adelaide! Good-by. Bid me God-speed!” exclaimed Orville, snatching his hat and darting from the room.

And in another moment he was in his saddle, galloping rapidly towards Bush Creek.