CHAPTER XIII.

ENTRAPPED.

See how the hopes of life resemble The uncertain glory of an April day, That now doth seem all sun and brightness, And then a tempest takes it all away. ANON.

Thus doth the ever changing course of things Run a perpetual circle, ever turning, And that same day which highest glory brings, Brings also to the point of back returning. DANIELS.

The steamship _Colorado_, by which Valdimir Desparde had sailed for England, reached Southampton in the gray dawn of a dreary, drizzling day early in December.

Having no luggage to detain him at the customhouse, he hastened immediately from the ship to the telegraph office, from which he sent a dispatch to Lord Beaudevere at Cloudland, notifying the baron of his safe arrival at Southampton and his immediate departure for Miston, and requesting his cousin to send the dog-cart to meet him at the station on the following morning.

From the telegraph office he hurried to the London and Southwestern Railway Station, where he procured a through ticket, in conjunction with the London and Northwestern and branch lines to Miston.

He had just time then to snatch a hasty breakfast in the refreshment-room before taking his seat in a first-class carriage, just an instant previous to the starting of the train.

His companions in the compartment were old gentlemen, each absorbed in his _Times_, and a young curate buried in his book, whatever it might have been.

Never had homesick exile returned to his native land with more joy in the present and more confidence in the future than did Valdimir Desparde.

He rode all that day, and late into the night, without any accident to break the monotony of his journey, except the brief stoppings of the train at the stations, where sometimes he left his compartment to stretch his limbs, or to get a cup of coffee or a sandwich.

It was midnight when he reached a certain junction where he was to change trains.

As he left his compartment to cross the open space that lay between the two tracks he met a man hurrying from the opposite direction, whose general appearance seemed so familiar to him that he turned to look after him; but the man had already disappeared in one of the carriages, and the train was moving.

He passed through the refreshment-room to get an apple, and had scarcely emerged from the opposite door when he was hailed by a guard who stood at a first-class carriage, with:

“All right, sir! _Here_ you are! Look sharp, sir, please! She’s off!”

Never dreaming that the guard mistook him for another person, and thinking only that the man meant to hurry his motions, Valdimir Desparde ran up to the open door, and was immediately shoved into the compartment, which was closed again simultaneously with the moving off of the train.

He saw that there was but one other passenger in this compartment—a tall, large woman, closely wrapped in a black waterproof cloak and a black hat, with a black gauze scarf vail wrapped around her head and face. She was leaning back in the right-hand corner of the back seat, and clasped a traveling-bag which rested on her knees.

Her unnatural stillness caused the young man to look at her with some attention; but she only seemed to be most comfortably and soundly asleep. Whether this woman were young or middle-aged, handsome or homely, Valdimir could not see, and did not care.

As a matter of courtesy he took a seat as far as possible from her—diagonally across on the opposite side.

The light of the lamp was burning at its lowest; another turn downward must have put it out.

It was just as the murderer had left it to conceal his crime for a few hours.

Valdimir, believing that the female passenger had turned it down to favor her own slumbers, and not caring to read, or to do anything but indulge in happy thoughts, left it so, and leaning back, closed his bodily eyes upon this contracted scene, only to open his mental ones upon the immediate future that arose in imagination before him—the happy meeting with his friends, the joyous reconciliation with his betrothed, the brilliant wedding, the blessed union.

Meanwhile the train thundered on.

An hour passed. The train stopped at some large station. People got off, and people got on.

The guard put his head in at this compartment.

“Can I do anything for you, sir?” he inquired.

“No, thanks,” answered Valdimir Desparde, in a low voice.

“Can I do anything for the lady?”

“No, I—think not. She seems to be sound asleep,” replied Desparde, a little hesitatingly, as he was answering for another.

“All right, sir,” and the man closed the door. “Yes, mum! This compartment _is_ engaged!” he replied, the next moment, to a lady who came to the door.

Valdimir arose to say that there were four vacant seats; but he was too late—the guard had marshaled off the lady to another carriage.

The train started again.

Desparde looked across at his companion. How very profoundly the woman slept. Not all the noise of the thundering train nor the shrieking of steam whistle when it was about to stop, seemed to disturb her in the least. She had never moved a hair’s breadth through all the racket and confusion.

Valdimir gazed at her now in wonder for a few moments, and then his happier reveries claimed him, and he closed his eyes and gave himself up to them.

Another hour of peace within the compartment, while all was thunder and flight without, and then the train, with much whistle-shrieking, “slowed” into a station.

Still the sleeping woman slept so profoundly as not to be disturbed by all the dreadful noise and confusion.

Valdimir Desparde looked at her again with increased wonder. She had not changed her position by the fraction of an inch.

“Poor soul, how tired out and exhausted she must have been!” said Valdimir to himself.

“Change carriages for Miston!” shouted the guard from the other end of the platform.

Desparde started at the welcome sound. He had not suspected that they had reached this junction.

He caught up his valise and left the carriage, closing the door behind him.

The first gray light of dawn was rising above the eastern hills.

“I shall reach home by sunrise! A good omen,” said Desparde to himself, as he crossed the familiar tracks to the other side of the way-station at which the Miston train was waiting.

A guard opened a carriage door, touched his hat, and said:

“Happy to see you back, Mr. Desparde.”

“Ha! Bartholomew! Is this you? I am very glad to see you! You are the first acquaintance—the very first—I have met since my arrival in England!” exclaimed Valdimir Desparde, with a slight start of pleasure.

The thunder of the departing train which Desparde had just left, and which had started again on its Northern flight, completely drowned the reply of Bartholomew.

“How are all our people at home?” inquired Valdimir, when the din had ceased, and as he took his seat in the carriage.

“All well, sir,” replied the man, standing with one foot upon the step—“except, of course—You may have heard what has happened at the castle, sir?” he inquired, suddenly breaking off his sentence to ask the question.

“No, indeed! I have heard nothing at all lately. What _has_ happened?” anxiously demanded Valdimir.

“Well, sir, it was to be expected, of course! His lordship was very old, and his departure should not grieve anybody; but the Earl of Altofaire is gone, sir!”

“_Indeed!_ I am very sorry! How and when did that happen?” demanded Valdimir.

“Apoplexy—a week ago, sir,” briefly replied the man.

“I am _very_ sorry to hear that! And the widowed countess, how does she bear it?”

“Not widowed at all, sir. Didn’t live for it! The countess—went nearly five months ago. Lungs, sir!”

“And—and—the Lady Ari—”

“Excuse me now, sir! Hate to leave! But must attend to business. What class, ma’am?” exclaimed the guard, as he closed the door, jumped off the step and ran to give a lady passenger a seat.

Valdimir sank back into his place, very sorry; not very much surprised to hear of the departure of an aged pair who had attained more than fourscore years, but very anxious to learn the condition of his betrothed, Lady Arielle Montjoie.

There was no one in the compartment with him. That was not an unusual situation on the Miston Branch Railroad. Few first-class passengers were accustomed to travel on this road at this hour.

Valdimir would have liked to learn from that guard, if he could have done so by _reading his mind_, what the people of Miston thought and said about his own sudden flight and long absence; for upon this subject, now, since meeting this man, he was feeling sensitive.

Ten minutes more, and the train drew into Miston Station.

In a tumult of emotion Valdimir Desparde looked out.

There were not many people to meet the train at this early hour. As before said, there were but few travelers come by it.

The fly from the Dolphin Inn was there, and Jack Ken was on the box.

Valdimir wondered whether his cousin, Lord Beaudevere, had received his telegram from Southampton, and if so, why he had not sent the dog-cart for him; but seeing no sign of the latter, he left the carriage, determined to engage the Dolphin fly to take him on to Cloudland.

But as he stepped down from the door he found himself in the arms of Lord Beaudevere, who had just that instant come up.

“Welcome home, my dear, dear boy! Welcome home!” exclaimed the baron, shaking the hands of his young relative with much emotion. “Welcome home, my dear Valdimir! But oh! you—you rascal! you ought to be hanged! What have you got to say, I wonder, why sentence of death should not be passed upon you?” demanded the baron, equally ready to laugh or cry.

“Nothing whatever, my dear lord. I throw myself on the mercy of the court, to ‘head or to hang,’ or to pardon, as it sees fit,” exclaimed Valdimir, responding cordially to the greeting of his cousin.

“Come, come, now! You must walk with me to the carriage. It is on the other side of the road. Couldn’t bring it nearer on account of the horses. Cut up like demons at the sound of the train. Come; where are your traps?”

“I have nothing but my valise, Beaue.”

“Here, boy! take this and carry it on to the Dolphin Inn. Look sharp, now! And tell _them_ to look sharp about the breakfast. Come, clear out with you! You needn’t wait for a passenger here. You see you won’t get any. The train is off!” said the baron, as he took the valise and threw it over to Jack Ken on the box of the fly.

Jack touched his hat and started for the inn at the same moment that the train left the station on its way further north.

The two gentlemen walked across the road to the spot where the Beaudevere carriage stood, and where the horses had a relapse into hysterics at the noise made by the departing train.

As the noise died away, however, the animals became quiet.

“How is my sister? I have not had a chance to ask you before,” said Valdimir, when they were seated side by side, and the carriage was rolling along the highway towards the inn.

“Vivienne is well and happy since we got your letter announcing your speedy return to vindicate yourself. She was wretched enough before that, I tell you!” exclaimed the baron.

“My dear sister! Ah! I have a long story to tell you, which will certainly rather awaken sympathy than condemnation.”

“Oh, I dare say. I dare say. But cut it now! You look utterly used up, and must have breakfast before anything is explained,” said Lord Beaudevere, a little coldly, for though he had zealously defended his young cousin in the presence of the Earl of Altofaire and Lady Arielle Montjoie, yet he really in his soul resented that supposititious low marriage of Valdimir Desparde.

“And how is—I would like to inquire after one whom—” began the young man, hesitatingly; but the baron helped him on.

“Do you mean the Lady Arielle Montjoie? Well, she is very delicate—has been so ever since you—But we will let that pass,” said Lord Beaudevere, breaking off in his turn.

“I see, Baron, that you still condemn me! But when you shall have heard my story, I dare to believe that you will not only pardon but approve my course,” said Valdimir, quietly.

“Very likely! Very likely! I do not really wish to blame you, my boy! You mortified us all very much, to be sure, but then you certainly broke no law of God or man! I know all about it, Valdimir, my lad!”

“_You_ know all about it, Beaue?” inquired the young man, in incredulous surprise.

“Oh, to be sure! Do you suppose, after your mysterious flight, that we did not set private detectives on your track and discover your whereabouts?”

Valdimir stared at his cousin in silence.

“We heard that you had embarked for New York under the name—the intensely Yankee name of Jefferson Adams, or Washington Monroe, or something of the sort—I have forgotten exactly what.”

“Was it Jonathan Adams?” inquired Valdimir, with a curious smile.

“Ah, that was it! Jonathan Adams!”

“What cannot detectives discover!”

“And, my boy, your sister and myself crossed the ocean after our stray sheep to find you and bring you home.”

“My dear Beaue!”

“Yes, we did! We went over to New York to find you and bind up your wounds, whatever they might be, and bring you home to the fatted calf and the rest of the penitent prodigal’s reward; but we came home again with a wasp in each ear!”

“What was that?” inquired Valdimir, with curiosity.

“The news that you had left New York for New Orleans, accompanied by your wife and child. And as that wife and child did not enter into our plans, or even into our knowledge, we ’bout ship and came back to old England.”

Valdimir stared at the speaker in mute amazement, and when, at length, he could speak, he merely muttered the words:

“‘Wife and child?’”

“Oh, yes, that girl from Skol you used to be so kind to! You see we know all about it! It is the old story! Old as Adam and the forbidden fruit! You were young, she was pretty, and—and—well, she _was_ your wife! I’ll do you the justice to believe that!”

“But the girl was not my wife!” exclaimed Desparde, still in amazement at the charge.

“Not your wife! Then you ought to be hanged, sir! I say now in earnest what I said before in jest: you ought to be hanged if the companion of your flight and the mother of your child was not your wife!” indignantly exclaimed the baron.

“Who told you that this woman and babe were my wife and child?” inquired Valdimir, without losing his temper in the least degree.

“The detectives we put upon your track!”

“My dear Beaue!” said Valdimir, “you never were more misled and deceived in your whole life. I do assure you, upon my word and honor, that that young woman and child were no more to me than they are to you, or to old Father Peter Lucas at the castle. Now, Beaue, whatever folly you may have suspected me of, you never could have suspected me of untruthfulness; and when I tell you this, you know I speak the truth.”

“And—and—Annek Yok of Skol was nothing to you?” inquired the baron, half relieved and half perplexed.

“No more than she was to you or to—the pope,” laughed the young man. “What I admire is the acumen of these astute private detectives, and the easy credulity of their patrons and victims.”

“My dear boy, I have wronged you, and I beg your pardon. But perhaps you will tell me what circumstances could have misled the detectives into making such a false report of you; and—what—on—earth—took you off on such a tangent if the embarrassment of a misalliance did not?” inquired the puzzled baron.

“I will tell you the false appearances that probably misled the detectives, or more likely those that informed the detectives, for this is a short story; but I must wait a more convenient season to explain the cause of my flight from the country—which cause, as I said before, will more than justify me in your eyes.”

Valdimir then gave a brief narrative of his unexpected meeting with Annek Yok on the wharf on the morning of their landing in New York, to which port she had emigrated with her child to join her husband; of her embarrassment at not being met by him;—of his own—Valdimir Desparde’s—in finding Eric Lan’s boarding-house, where he learned that the man had died of typhoid fever only a few days previous; of the keen distress of the young widow, and her resolve to go with her child to her brothers in New Orleans, whither Valdimir himself was bound, and whither he took the two forlorn ones, protecting them until he left them in the care of their relatives.

He ended his narrative by telling of the death of the mother and child from yellow fever.

“My brave boy! And so your good deeds have actually been distorted and misrepresented to your hurt,” warmly exclaimed the baron.

“Did this story reach the ears of Lady Arielle?” inquired Valdimir.

“Ay, you may depend it did! And, by the way, it reached _her_ through a different channel! Oh—”

“Not by the detectives’ report?” inquired Desparde, with an access of curiosity and interest.

“No; but through a letter purporting to come from yourself. Oh, I suspect there has been some grand villainy at work!”

“A letter—from _me_?” inquired Valdimir, in perplexity.

“Yes—a letter purporting to come from you to Mr. Brandon Coyle, confessing your low marriage as the cause of your flight! This letter was sent by Miss Coyle to Lady Arielle Montjoie.”

“It was a base forgery!” indignantly exclaimed Valdimir.

“I assuredly now believe it to have been such. It only seemed plausible at first because it appeared to be genuine; it corroborated the detectives’ story, and it was forwarded through the Coyles, whom we had no reason then to suspect.”

“Brandon Coyle is a villain!” burst forth Desparde.

“An unmasked villain _now_, my boy! He has left the neighborhood, I believe. Certain discoveries of his misdeeds have driven him away. But here we are at the Dolphin, and we must defer all serious conversation until after breakfast,” said the baron, as they drew up before the ancient hostelry.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]