第130章

The earl turned like one struck on the back, imagined something of which Arctura knew nothing, cowered to two-thirds of his height, and crept away. Though herself trembling from head to foot, Arctura was seized with such a pity, that she followed him to his room; but she dared not go in. She stood a moment in the passage within sight of his door, and thought she heard his bell ring. Now Simmons might meet Donal! In a moment or two, however, she was relieved. Donal came round a turn, carrying his implements. She signed to him to make haste, and he was just safe inside her room when Simmons came along on his way to his master's. She drew the door to, as if she had been just coming out, and said, "Knock at my door as you return, and tell me how your master is: I heard his bell."

She then begged Donal to go on with his work, but stop it the moment she made a noise with the handle of the door, and resumed her place outside till Simmons should re-appear. Full ten minutes she stood waiting: it seemed an hour. Though she heard Donal at work within, and knew Simmons must soon come, though the room behind her was her own, and familiar to her from childhood, the long empty passage in front of her appeared frightful. What might not come pacing along towards her! At last she heard her uncle's door--steps--and the butler approached. She shook the handle of the door, and Donal's blows ceased.

"I can't make him out, my lady!" said Simmons. "It is nothing very bad, I think, this time; but he gets worse and worse--always taking more and more o' them horrid drugs. It's no use trying to hide it: he'll drop off sudden one o' these days! I've heard say laudanum don't shorten life; but it's not one nor two, nor half a dozen sorts o' laudanums he keeps mixing in that poor inside o' his! The end must come, and what will it be? It's better you should be prepared for it when it do come, my lady. I've just been a giving of him some into his skin--with a little sharp-pointed thing, a syringe, you know, my lady: he says it's the only way to take some medicines.

He's just a slave to his medicines, my lady!"

As soon as he was gone, Arctura returned to Donal. He had knocked the plaster away, and uncovered a slab, very like one of the great stones on some of the roofs. The next thing was to prize it from the mortar, and that was not difficult. The instant he drew the stone away, a dank chill assailed them, accompanied by a humid smell, as from a long-closed cellar. They stood and looked, now at each other, now at the opening in the wall, where was nothing but darkness. The room grew cold and colder. Donal was anxious as to how Arctura might stand what discovery lay before them, and she was anxious to read his sensations. For her sake he tried to hide all expression of the awe that was creeping over him, and it gave him enough to do.

"We are not far from something, my lady!" he said. "It makes one think of what He said who carries the light everywhere--that there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Shall we leave it for the present?"

"Anything but that!" said Arctura with a shiver; "--anything but an unknown terrible something!"

"But what can you do with it?"

"Let the daylight in upon it."

Her colour returned as she spoke, and a look of determination came into her eyes.

"You will not be afraid to be left then when I go down?"

"I am cowardly enough to be afraid, but not cowardly enough to let you go alone. I will share with you. I shall not be afraid--not much--not too much, I mean--if I am with you."

Donal hesitated.

"See!" she went on, "I am going to light a candle, and ask you to come down with me--if down it be: it may be up!"

"I am ready, my lady," said Donal.

She lighted the candle.

"Had we not better lock the door, my lady?"

"That might set them wondering," she answered. "We should have to lock both the doors of this room, or else both the passage-doors!

The better way will be to pull the press after us when we are behind it."

"You are right, my lady. Please take some matches with you."

"To be sure."

"You will carry the candle, please. I must have my hands free. Try to let the light shine past me as much as you can, that I may see where I am going. But I shall depend most on my hands and feet."