CHAPTER XVI.

THE CHARM.

Stella’s sudden disappearance startled Dakin.

She had believed the girl to be too seriously ill to attempt to run away. But, after all, as she told herself, stepping gingerly on to the wet grass after her errant charge, Miss Cranstoun couldn’t go very far. Still she was nervous. Sir Philip had given particular orders that his daughter should have more liberty this evening, but he had said nothing about permitting her to stray about the grounds.

Mrs. Dakin was not wholly inhuman, although of a mean, hard, vulgar, and sordid nature. She had been promised five and twenty pounds, to be divided between her and Ellen, to whom she decided that the odd five pounds should go as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, and she wanted to earn it. At the same time Stella’s appearance this evening had been so strange, her eyes had appeared so unnaturally large and bright, and her face of so waxen and unhealthy a pallor, that the spy had serious misgivings as to whether she would be alive and in her right mind for the ceremony of the morrow. Consequently, she had decided that a little fresh air might do the girl good, and as Stella was wearing a white woollen shawl over her shoulders, there was no particular danger of her catching a cold, even though the evening was damp and chilly.

Mrs. Dakin approached the outskirts of the wood and called Stella’s name, not too loudly, being in great dread lest she should draw Sir Philip’s anger upon her own head for losing sight of her.

“Miss Cranstoun! Miss Cranstoun! Miss Stella! Pray come in. You’ll be catching cold!”

Only a faint echo thrown from the thick walls of the Chase answered her. Unaccustomed to country sights and sounds, the last murmurs of the birds twittering good-nights to each other from the trees and the sound of the light rain which began to patter on the leaves made her nervous. The wood seemed full of rustlings, and almost, as it appeared to her, of human laughter, fitful and mocking.

Was Miss Stella hidden anywhere and laughing at her? Such a course of conduct seemed very unlike her young mistress, who never scrupled to show her proud dislike and distrust for the paid spies by whom she was surrounded. And yet, if it was not Stella, who could it be, for there undoubtedly _was_ laughter sounding somewhere in the twilight woods?

Dakin was growing frightened. It was now fully twenty minutes since Stella had given her the slip. She did not know her way about the property, and could see no sign of Miss Cranstoun anywhere. With her neat black gown torn and her hands badly scratched by the brambles, she made her way out again into the open, resolved upon engaging further help in the discovery of her mistress. To her great relief, she caught sight of Stephen Lee, sauntering along with his hands in his pockets from the direction of the kitchen quarters. He looked less saturnine than usual, and a smile actually lurked about his mouth. Without hesitation, Dakin ran toward him.

“Mr. Lee!” she exclaimed; “the very man I want! I came out here with my young lady for her to get a breath of fresh air, and I’ve lost her somehow in the wood. You know your way in and out of them trees--find her at once, there’s a good fellow, and I’ll give you five shillings for yourself. She’s ill and upset, and I’m almost afraid,” she added, lowering her tone, “if she’s left alone that she’ll be doing herself a mischief.”

The blood rushed all over the young gypsy’s face in an instant. He guessed that old Sarah had some hand in Stella’s disappearance, yet he had no more idea than Dakin as to where Stella was or what old Mrs. Carewe’s plans with regard to her could be. His own instructions had been simply to make love to the lady’s maid, and so to withdraw her attention from her mistress, and at this task he had succeeded only too well.

He stood now, hesitating a moment, as Dakin addressed him. Old Sarah was about in the woods, probably, and James Carewe also; of that he felt as certain as that a gypsy’s caravan was encamped immediately outside the Chase demesne on a piece of waste land, not very far from the ruined tower. He must not meddle in grandame Sarah’s concerns for certain. If Sarah intended to spirit Stella away that night, she would most certainly do so, and if she did _not_ mean that, what was the sense of all her prophecies about Stella’s relenting toward him--Stephen--and showing signs of returning his love?

He was so long silent that Dakin grew impatient.

“Why, man,” she cried, “why are you standing, staring, there? She is lost in the wood--your young mistress--can’t you understand?”

“I understand right enough,” he answered in a surly tone; “but I’ve got to think out for myself which path she’d be likely to take. You wait on the terrace steps, missis, and I’ll see if I can find her.”

He struck into the wood, and made his way rapidly through the branches until he reached a point at which he calculated that Dakin could not hear him. The sky had grown very dark by this time with falling dusk, and the rain-clouds. Here, under the overarching branches, it was difficult even for Stephen’s hawk-eyes to distinguish anything. Stopping still, he uttered three times the same low, peculiar whistle with which he had heralded his approach to the ruined tower. Then he listened, and very faintly, as from some distance, he caught an answering sound.

Again he gave the signal, and this time the responsive whistle was nearer, and the sound of breaking twigs heralded the approach of one or more persons through the brushwood. He hardly knew whether or not to feel surprised when, through an opening of the boughs, he perceived two female figures approaching him. One was Stella, with her white woollen shawl drawn about her head and shoulders, the other was _mami_ Sarah, looking very bent and tiny, as she hobbled along beside her tall companion.

“You are here all right, then,” said the old woman to him. “Good boy--good boy! Now, see this young lady back into the house. She’s been having a little talk with poor old Sarah. She knows old Sarah’s her friend, don’t you, deary?”

The girl bent her head in a dazed fashion, as it seemed to Stephen. He, for his part, utterly failed to understand the whole business.

“I came into the woods to find Miss Cranstoun,” he said, doubtfully. “It was that spy woman sent me. I thought--I hoped,” he stammered, “that you, _mami_ Sarah, might have helped Miss Cranstoun to escape.”

The crone broke into her creaking laugh.

“Leave it to me, Steve,” she muttered; “old Sarah knows her business. Steve needn’t teach his great-grandmother. Remember all I’ve said to you, dearie,” she added, turning to Stella, “and as for this young man, though you’re Miss Cranstoun of the Chase, he’s your cousin, and you may trust him. Now, good-night to you, my dearies, both. A handsome pair they make, a handsome pair!”

So, muttering and gibbering to herself, old Mrs. Lee disappeared again among the trees, huddled in her hooded cloak, and as like the realization of a witch in a fairy-tale as could be imagined, leaving Stephen and Stella standing opposite each other in the dusk, while the rain pattered on the branches above their heads.

Stephen was the first to break the silence. Some strange fear of the girl possessed him; he had always been in awe of her, and her unmoved manner of receiving Sarah’s communication struck him as being out of place and strange.

“Do you really wish to go back to the house, Miss Cranstoun?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You have no desire to escape? Because you have only to say the word, and I will lay down my life trying to set you free. Don’t you want to be free?”

“No.”

She spoke mechanically, although he felt that in the darkness her eyes were fixed searchingly upon him.

He drew a long breath, and then said, in the same constrained tones:

“The woman Dakin is waiting for you on the terrace. Shall I take you to her?”

“Yes.”

Without another word he led the way through the trees on to the grass before the house. It was considerably more than half an hour since Dakin had lost Stella, but she was there on the terrace, anxiously awaiting her.

The rain had ceased, and the sky was clear. There was still sufficient light for Stephen, as he suddenly turned to look at his young mistress, to distinguish her features and expression.

As he did so, his heart grew cold within him, for the look in her dilated dark eyes was not only wild, but absolutely wicked.