CHAPTER XXII.

MYSTERIES.

Dread is the power of dreams! Who has not felt, When in the morning light such visions melt, How the vailed soul, though struggling to be free, Ruled by that deep, unfathomed mystery, Wakes, haunted by the thoughts of good or ill Whose shading influence pursues us still! CAROLINE NORTON.

As Arielle finished her strange recital, she clung to her friend and shook again as with an ague fit.

Net was much amazed, not so much by the vision itself, which she explained mentally upon natural grounds, as by the effect it had had on Arielle.

“Well, my dear, what happened next?” she inquired, thinking it best to encourage the terrified girl to talk and get the whole subject off her mind.

“Oh, then, Net, as soon as the awful vision vanished, I recovered my powers of motion; I started up, sprang out of bed and ran to you. That is all. I feel better now, since I have told you. Oh, Net, what do you think of it?” piteously inquired the trembling girl.

Net Fleming did not answer for some moments, but then she said, deprecatingly:

“Don’t you see, my dear, that this was only a dream? While you were lying there so quietly, so restfully, as you describe yourself to have been, you unconsciously dropped asleep, though perhaps only for a moment, and dreamed all this.”

“No, no, no, I did not, Net! Oh, Net! how very, _very_ hard you are to convince. But perhaps you have never in your life seen a supernatural form or heard a supernatural voice?”

“No,” replied the sound-bodied and sound-minded little woman, “I never have.”

“Well, then, of course it is of no use talking to you! I might as well talk of light to a person born stone blind, or of music to one born stone deaf! I don’t blame you for your incredulity, Net.”

“No, nor do I blame you for your illusions, dear,” smiled Net.

The mantel clock struck eight.

Net slipped out of bed and unlocked the chamber door and rang her bell, and then returned to bed, for the room was very cold.

Nelly Lacy came in and made the fire.

And the next minute the two children burst open the nursery door and ran in, in their night-gowns, and climbed up into Little Mammam’s bed, all unconscious that she had a companion.

“They are enough to put all the ghosts of Gehenna to flight; are they not?” laughed Net, as she returned their caresses.

“_Hush, oh, hush!_” breathed Arielle in an awestruck tone.

When the fire had warmed the room the friends arose.

Lady Arielle went back to her own chamber, where she found another bright fire and her maid Lucy Lacy in attendance.

Nelly Lacy took the children back to the nursery and dressed them.

Net made her simple toilet, and went down stairs to the breakfast parlor. She was soon joined by her hostess, who, on entering, said:

“As we are alone, I have sent Lacy to tell Nelly to bring the children to breakfast with us. I know that they have been accustomed to breakfast with you. I forgot to do it earlier, and only thought of it when they came bursting in upon us up stairs.”

“How kind and thoughtful you are, dear Arielle.”

“I _mean_ to be kind, but indeed I am not thoughtful. If I _had_ been I should have had these children at table with us ever since Lord Beaudevere and Vivienne went away. Ah, no!—But here are the children.”

They all sat down at the table, and lingered over the breakfast until the clock struck ten.

“Only two hours now, dear Net. Surely—surely—if all is right, they will be here in two hours!” exclaimed Lady Arielle, as she put her hand through Net’s bended elbow and leaned thereon, walking up and down the hall—for Arielle was too restless to sit down.

But they had not to wait until noon for news.

At half-past eleven, while the two friends were sitting in the smaller drawing-room in tasteful morning dresses, waiting with almost breathless impatience for the arrival of the expected visitors, Adams, the ladies’ footman entered with a note on a silver salver, which he handed to the young lady, saying:

“A groom from Cloudland brought it, my lady.”

“Well, take him to the servants’ hall and give him some refreshments while his horse rests,” said Lady Arielle, scarcely able to curb her impatience until the man left the room.

Then, with beating heart and burning cheeks, she tore open the note, which she saw was in Vivienne’s handwriting, and she read it, while Net watched her anxiously.

Vivienne’s little missive was as follows:

“CLOUDLAND, Dec. 16th, 18—.

“MY DEAREST ARIELLE.—I write to save you some hours of useless anxiety. My brother arrived at Miston Station in good health early this morning, and was met by Beaue.

“But, alack-a-day! as the old folks used to say, he was subpœnaed as a witness upon some disturbance that occurred on the train, and had to go back to some station to testify.

“Beaue went with him, and sent the carriage back, with a note for me by the coachman to tell me of this annoying _contretemps_, and to say that I must not expect them back until late to-night. Did you ever hear of anything more provoking in your life? I have no words strong enough to express my disgust and abhorrence of this state of affairs.

“I shall sit up for them to-night, and send them both up to see you early to-morrow morning. And in the meantime, with love to Net and the children, I am your own

“VIVIENNE.”

Arielle read this over to herself, and then read it aloud to Net.

“Now _is not_ this the most vexatious thing that could possibly happen? It really makes me feel ill. I can appreciate now the old proverb that says: ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’ My heart is sick. Twenty-four hours more! Oh, dear Net! Couldn’t you chloroform me, and keep me under the influence of that pain-killing drug until this time to-morrow morning?” she inquired, with a piteous look in the face of her friend.

“It is very trying, I know, dear Arielle; but you must be brave and patient. It will not seem so long. The day is already half spent, the night you will sleep away, because you did not sleep last night, and to-morrow morning you will have nothing to do but to expect your visitors,” said Net, hopefully.

Arielle sighed deeply, thinking within her own mind that if she could feel certain Valdimir Desparde had _not_ been so false to her as to have married another woman, and if it would not be so unmaidenly, she could find it in her heart to take Net and go to Cloudland to share the vigil of Vivienne, and so meet Valdimir half a day sooner.

She controlled this passionate desire so completely that Net did not even suspect its existence.

But the day passed very heavily with Arielle, who could settle herself to nothing.

When bed-time came Arielle said to her friend: “Net, dear, I am really afraid to sleep alone. I wish you would let me share your room this one night. Should I disturb you, do you think?”

“Why, no, dear! I am usually a very good sleeper, not easily disturbed. How should I be when I have been accustomed for the last four years to sleep between two kicking children? I shall be glad of your company.”

So that night the two girls slept together, and slept soundly until morning.

They arose blithely too, and soon after breakfast they began to look for their longed-for visitors.

But another disappointment awaited them.

Again Adams appeared with a little, cream-colored note on a silver salver.

Arielle grew dizzy as she took it and tore it open.

It contained only a few informal lines, as follows:

“Beaue is a fox, an old fox, a sly old fox! He did not inform me yesterday morning of the nature of the disturbance that detained Valdimir. And last night he came home without my brother. And when I brought him to bay he had to confess that Valdimir was personally interested in that ‘disturbance;’ that in point of fact, said ‘disturbance’ was caused by my brother’s having been robbed while in the railway carriage, of the most valuable family jewel in his possession! a jewel worth all the landed property in the family. I suppose it is the great historical diamond called ‘Sirius.’ _I_ thought that jewel was safe in the vaults of my cousin’s banker. How careless of Valdimir to carry it about him.

“I will tell you this: if ever it should come into _my_ possession—which is scarcely possible—I should sell it to some sovereign with more cash than common sense, and invest the price in solid real estate with a sure title that could neither be lost nor stolen.

“Well, Valdimir has gone back ever so far on his track in search of this stolen jewel, and will not return until he has recovered it.

“Beaue says that there is no doubt it will be recovered. A jewel of such worth cannot long be lost.

“Beaue only came home to relieve my anxiety, and went back this morning to rejoin Valdimir and assist in the search.

“I am laid up with a dreadful cold in the head, caught through standing out in the night air watching for Valdimir.

“Take warning by my fate and don’t watch.

“Love to Net and babies.

“Your own VIVIENNE.”

Arielle read the letter and passed it over to Net, without a word of comment, but with a look of comic despair, if such a term be allowable.

She was very far from suspecting the gravity of the matter that detained her lover.

Net in turn read the letter, and passed it back to its owner, only saying:

“It is the fate of Tantalus.”

The footman who had brought in the letter stood waiting orders.

“Go, Adams, and bring me the morning’s papers. If that robbery took place night before last, there must be some notice of in this morning’s _Times_.”

“Beg pardon, my lady, but no papers have come this morning,” replied the man.

“Why, how is that? It is one o’clock! They should have been here before now.”

“They have not come, my lady.”

“Well, go; and as soon as they do come bring them to me. Yet stay! I must write a line of acknowledgment to Miss Desparde. I did not reply to her note yesterday,” added Arielle, in an aside to Net.

She sat down to a writing-table near the fireplace and scribbled off a hasty note, very guarded, however, in its wording, not by any means exposing the extremity of her own anxiety and impatience, but only expressing her own and Net Fleming’s sympathy with Vivienne’s disappointment and indisposition, and their hopes of her brother’s speedy arrival and her own happy recovery,

She read this letter also to Net and then sealed, directed and dispatched it by Adams to Miss Desparde’s waiting messenger.

All that day Lady Arielle waited and watched for the daily newspapers that failed to come.

She did not know that her guardian had caused them to be stopped, lest they should shock her with the news of Valdimir Desparde’s arrest on the dreadful charge of murder.

She blamed the unlucky newsagent, and denounced him in no measured terms.

“Jobson has a monopoly at Miston! He is too independent! He neglects his business! There should be a rival establishment there, which I should certainly patronize! The _idea_ of his neglecting to send the papers to-day!” she exclaimed for the twentieth time.

Net laughed.

“Poor Jobson!” she said— “any one of a dozen accidents may have happened to prevent his sending the papers. And as to his ‘monopoly,’ it hardly puts bread enough into his hungry children’s mouths! I wish you could see them, poor things!”

“Oh, Net, I am a selfish wretch, and all my goodness is not skin deep! The minute anything crosses me, I am bad! That is, I mean, I find out how bad I am!” said Arielle, half lightly, half penitently.

Net did not contradict or flatter her. It was not Net’s way.

Still another weary day and night passed, and then at length, something happened; but it was not what they had expected.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]