“Nothing could save him,” cried the girl.“If I told others what I have told you,and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die.He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!”
“Is it possible,” cried Rose,“that for such a man as this,you can resign every future hope,and the certainty of immediate rescue?It is madness.”
“I don’t know what it is,” answered the girl;“I only know that it is so, and not with me alone,but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself.I must go back. Whether it is God’s wrath for the wrong I have done,I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last.”
“What am I to do?” said Rose. “I should not let you depart from me thus.”
“You should, lady, and I know you will,” rejoined the girl, rising.“You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness,and forced no promise from you, as I might have done.”
“Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?” said Rose. “This mystery must be investigated,or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver,whom you are anxious to serve?”
“You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret,and advise you what to do,” rejoined the girl.
“But where can I find you again when it is necessary?” asked Rose. “I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live,but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?”
“Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept,and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it;and that I shall not be watched or followed?” asked the girl.
“I promise you solemnly,” answered Rose.
“Every Sunday night,from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,” said the girl without hesitation,“I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive.”
“Stay another moment,” interposed Rose,as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door.“Think once again on your own condition,and the opportunity you have of escaping from it.You have a claim on me:not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence,but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption.Will you return to this gang of robbers,and to this man, when a word can save you?What fascination is it that can take you back,and make you cling to wickedness and misery?Oh!is there no chord in your heart that I can touch!Is there nothing left,to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!”
“When ladies as young, and good,and beautiful as you are,” replied the girl steadily,“give away your hearts,love will carry you all lengths—even such as you,who have home, friends, other admirers, everything,to fill them. When such as I,who have no certain roof but the coffinlid,and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse,set our rotten hearts on any man,and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us?Pity us, lady—pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left,and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment,from a comfort and a pride,into a new means of violence and suffering.”
“You will,” said Rose, after a pause,“take some money from me,which may enable you to live without dishonesty—at all events until we meet again?”
“Not a penny,” replied the girl, waving her hand.
“Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,” said Rose, stepping gently forward.“I wish to serve you indeed.”
“You would serve me best, lady,” replied the girl,wringing her hands, “if you could take my life at once;for I have felt more grief to think of what I am,tonight, than I ever did before,and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived.God bless you, sweet lady,and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!”
Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud,the unhappy creature turned away; while Rose Maylie,overpowered by this extraordinary interview,which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence,sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts.
CHAPTER XLI. CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES,AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE
Her situation was, indeed,one of no common trial and difficulty.While she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which Oliver’s history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed, had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl. Her words and manner had touched Rose Maylie’s heart; and, mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope.
They purposed remaining in London only three days,prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast.It was now midnight of the first day.What course of action could she determine upon,which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours?Or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion?
Mr. Losberne was with them,and would be for the next two days;but Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman’s impetuosity,and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which,in the first explosion of his indignation,he would regard the instrument of Oliver’s recapture,to trust him with the secret,when her representations in the girl’s behalf could be seconded by no experienced person. These were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject. As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reason. Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when—the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection—he might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away.
Disturbed by these different reflections;inclining now to one course and then to another,and again recoiling from all,as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind;Rose passed a sleepless and anxious night.After more communing with herself next day,she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry.
“If it be painful to him,” she thought,“to come back here, how painful it will be to me!But perhaps he will not come; he may write,or he may come himself,and studiously abstain from meeting me—he did when he went away.I hardly thought he would;but it was better for us both.” And here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away,as though the very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep.
She had taken up the same pen,and laid it down again fifty times,and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word, when Oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm.
“What makes you look so flurried?” asked Rose, advancing to meet him.
“I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,” replied the boy. “Oh dear!To think that I should see him at last,and you should be able to know that I have told you the truth!”
“I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,” said Rose, soothing him. “But what is this?—of whom do you speak?”
“I have seen the gentleman,” replied Oliver,scarcely able to articulate,“the gentleman who was so good to me—Mr. Brownlow,that we have so often talked about.”
“Where?” asked Rose.