Norine's Revenge, and, Sir Noel's Heir

"How dazed you look, little girl!" her happy lover said laughing; "am I such an ogre, then, in your sight?"

He drew her hand beneath his arm, with the air of one who assumes a right, and led her to the house. They were alone together in the parlor, and she was trying to call her wandering mind to order, and listen to him and answer his questions. She could see with terror that he was watching her already with grave, troubled eyes. What was it, this pale, still change in her? Dread of her approaching marriage, maiden timidity, or worst of all – was the thought of another man haunting her still?

Tea time came and was a relief; after tea, Mr. Gilbert proposed a walk. Norine took her hat passively, and went out with him into the hushed and placid twilight. The pale primrose light was fading out of the western sky, and a rising wind was tossing the arms of the hemlocks where she stood with another lover last night.

It was a very silent walk. They strolled along the lonesome road, with the primrose light growing grayer and grayer through the velvety meadows, where the quiet cows grazed. Something of the dark shadows deepening around them seemed to steal into the man's heart, and dull it with nameless dread, but there was no voice in the rising wind, in the whispering trees, in the creeping gloom, to tell him of what was so near.

A very silent walk – the last they would ever take. The little talking done, Mr. Gilbert did himself. He told her that all his preparations for his bride, all his arrangements for her comfort were made. Their home in New York's stateliest avenue was ready and waiting – their wedding tour would be to Montreal and Niagara, unless Norine had some other choice. But she would be glad to see once more the quaint, gray, dear old Canadian town – would she not?

"Yes, she would ever be glad to see Montreal. No, she had no other choice." She shivered as she said it, looking far off with blank eyes that dare not meet his. "Niagara would do very well, all places were alike to her. It was growing cold and dark," – abruptly this – "suppose they went home."

Something in her tone and manner, in her want of interest and enthusiasm, hurt him. More silently than they had come they recrossed the darkening fields. The moon was rising as they drew near the house, forcing its way up through dark and jagged clouds. She paused suddenly for a moment, with her pale face turned towards it. Mr. Gilbert paused, too, looking at the lowering sky.

"Listen to the wind," he said. "We will have a change to-morrow."

"A change!" she said, in a hushed sort of voice. "Yes, the storm is very near."

"And you are shivering in this raw night wind. You are white and cold as a spirit, my darling. Come let us go in."

His baggage had arrived – a trunk and valise stood in the hall as they entered. The sister and brothers sat in holiday attire in the keeping room, but very grave and quiet. The shadow that had fallen on Richard Gilbert in the twilight fields seemed to have fallen here, too.

Norine sat at the piano, her face turned away from the light, and played the melodies he asked for. From these she drifted gradually into music more in accordance with her mood, playing in a mournful, minor key, until Mr. Gilbert could endure the saddening sweetness no longer.

"Your music is very melancholy, my dear," he said quietly. "Will you not sing us something instead."

"Not to-night, I think. I find my headache has not altogether departed. If you will kindly excuse me, I will retire."

She got up as she spoke, lit a lamp, and with a brief good-night, was gone.

It was not yet ten o'clock, but there was little inducement to linger now. Mr. Gilbert owned to being rather fatigued, took his light, and departed. Before half-past ten all were in their rooms, the doors and windows secured for the night. By eleven all were asleep – all save one.

Norine sat at her window, her light shaded, her watch (one of Richard Gilbert's presents to his bride elect) open before her, gazing out into the gusty darkness, and waiting. Her hands were tightly clasped together, silent, tearless sobs shook her at times as remorse swept through her soul, and yet not for one minute did she think of withdrawing from her tryst. But she would not fly with Laurence Thorndyke – no, no! Every best impulse within her cried out she would not, she could not. She was a wretch for even thinking of it – a wretch for going to this meeting, but she would only go to say farewell forever. She loved him, but she belonged to another man; it would be better to die than to betray him. She would bid Laurence Thorndyke go to-night, and never see him more.

The threatening storm seemed drawing very near. The moon was half obscured in dense clouds; the wind tore around the gables; the trees tossed their long, green arms wildly aloft. Within the house profoundest silence reigned.

Half-past eleven! the hour of tryst; she seemed to count the moments by the dull beating of her heart. She rose up, extinguished her lamp, put on a waterproof, drawing the hood over her head, took her slippers in her hand, and opened the door. She paused and listened, half choked by the loud throbbing of her heart, by guilty, nameless dread. All was still – no sound but the surging of the trees without; no glimmer of light from any room. She stole on tiptoe along the passage, down the stairs, and into the lower hall. Noiselessly she unlocked the door, opened it, and was out in the windy dark, under the gloom of the trees. One second's pause, her breath coming in frightened gasps, then she was flitting away in the chill night wind to meet her lover. She reached the gate, leaned over it eagerly, straining her eyes through the gloom.

"Laurence!" she said, in a tremulous whisper. "Laurence, I have come."

"My own brave little girl!"

A tall figure stepped forward from beneath a tree, too warm hands clasped hers.

"Norry, you're a trump, by Jove! Come out at once. All is ready. You must fly with me to-night."

But she shrank back – shocked, terrified, yet longing with all her soul to obey.

"No, no!" she cried. "I can never go – never! never! never! O Lawrence! I have come here to bid you good-by forever!"

His answer was to laugh aloud. His face was flushed his blue eyes gleaming – Mr. Laurence Thorndyke, bold enough at all times, had primed himself with brandy for to-night's work, until he was ready to face and defy devils and men.

"Good-by forever!" he repeated. "Yes, that's so likely, my darling. Come out here, Norry – come out. I've no notion of talking with a five-barred gate between us. So old Gilbert came down to his wedding this afternoon didn't he? By Jupiter! what a row there will be to-morrow, when the cage is opened, and the bird found flown."

He laughed recklessly aloud, as he opened the gate and drew her out.

"Not if I know it, Norry. No dry-as-dust, grim, solemn owl of a lawyer for my little Canadian rosebud, old as the everlasting hills, and priggish as the devil. No, no! we'll change all that. Before morning dawns you and I will be safely in Boston, and before another night falls you'll be my blessed little wife – the loveliest bride from Maine to Florida, and I the most blissful of bridegrooms. All is ready – here are my horse and buggy – the sloop sails in an hour, and then – let them catch us who can!"

Either the excitement of his triumph, or the French brandy, had set Mr. Laurence Thorndyke half wild. He drew her with him, heedless of her struggles, her passionate protest.

"Can't go? Oh, that's all bosh, my darling! you've got to come. I love you, and you love me – (sounds like a child's valentine, don't it?) – and you don't care that for old Dick Gilbert. You won't go? If you don't I'll shoot myself before morning – I swear I will! You don't want me to shoot myself, do you? I can't live without you, Norry, and I don't mean to try. After we're married, and the honeymoon's over, I'll fetch you back to the old folks if you like, upon my sacred honor I will. Not a word now, my little angel, I won't listen. Of course you've scruples, and all that. I think the more of you for them, but you'll thank me for not listening one day. Here's the carriage – get in, get in, get in!"

He fairly lifted her in as he spoke.

Stunned, terrified, bewildered, she struggled in vain. He only laughed aloud, caught up the reins, and struck the horse with the whip. The horse, a spirited one, darted forward like a flash; there was a girl's faint, frightened scream.

"O Laurence! let me go!"

A wild laugh drowned it – they flew over the ground like the wind. Norine was gone! His exultant singing mingled with the crash of the wheels as they disappeared.

"She is won! they are gone over bush, brake and scar;They'll have fleet steeds that follow, quoth young Lochinvar."

CHAPTER VIII.

FLED!

Mr. Gilbert went to his room, went to his bed, but he did not go to sleep. He lay awake so long, tossing restlessly, that, at last, in disgust, he got up dressed himself partly, and sat down in the darkness by his open chamber window; to have it out.

What was the matter with Norine? Headache; she had said – but to eyes sharpened by deep, true love, it looked much more like heartache. The averted eyes, the faltering voice, the pallid cheeks, the shrinking form, betokened something deeper than headache. Was she at the eleventh hour repenting her marriage? Was she still in love with Laurence Thorndyke? Was she pining for the freedom she had resigned? Was there no spark of affection for him in her girl's heart after all?

"I was mad and presumptuous to dream of it," he thought. "I am thirty-six – she is seventeen. I am not handsome, nor brilliant, nor attractive to a girl's fancy in any way – she is all. Yes, she is pining for him, and repenting of her hastily-plighted troth. Well, then, she shall have it back. If I loved her tenfold more than I do, and Heaven knows to love her any better than I do mortal man cannot, still I would resign her. No woman shall ever come to me as wife with her heart in the keeping of another man. Better a thousand times to part now than to part after marriage. I have seen quite too much, in my professional capacity of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure, to try it myself. I will speak to her to-morrow; she shall tell me the truth fearlessly and frankly while it is not yet too late, and if it be as I dread, why, then, I can do as better men have done – bear my pain and go my way. Poor, pretty little Norry! with her drooping face and pathetic, wistful eyes – she longs to tell me, I know, and is afraid. It is a very tender heart, a very romantic little heart, and who is to blame her if it turns to him, young and handsome as she is herself, instead of to the grave, dull, middle-aged lawyer. And yet, it will be very hard to say good-by."

He broke down for a moment, alone as he was. A great flood of recollection came over him – the thought of parting – now – was bitter indeed. A vision rose before him – Norine as he had seen her first, standing shyly downcast in the train, her dark, childlike eyes glancing imploringly around, the sensitive color coming and going in her innocent face. She arose before him again as he had seen her later, flushed and downcast, sweet and smiling, bending over Laurence Thorndyke, with "Love's young dream" written in every line of her happy face. Again as he had seen her that day when he spoke, pale, startled, troubled, afraid to accept, afraid to refuse, and faltering out the words that made him so idiotically happy, with her little, white, handsome face, keeping its startled pallor.

"Yes," he said, "yes, yes, I see it all. She said 'yes,' because it is not in her yielding, gentle, child's heart to say no. And now she is repenting when she thinks it too late. But it is not too late; to-morrow I will speak and she will answer, and if there be one lingering doubt in her mind, we will shake hands and part. My little love! I wish for your sake Laurence Thorndyke were worthy of you, and might return; but to meet him again is the worst fate that can befall you, and in three months poor Helen Holmes will be his bride."

Hark! was that a sound? He broke off his reverie to listen. No, all was still again – only the surging of the wind in the maples.

"It certainly sounded like the opening of a door below," he thought; "a rat perhaps – all are in bed."

He was looking blankly out into the windy darkness. This time to-morrow night his fate would be decided. Would he still be in this room, waiting for Thursday morning to dawn and give him Norine, or —

He broke off abruptly again. Was that a figure moving down in the gloom to the gate? Surely not, and yet something moved. A second more, and it had vanished. Was this fancy, too? He waited, he listened. Clearly through the dusk, borne on the wind, there came to him the faint, far-off sound of a laugh.

"Who can it be?" he thought, puzzled. "No fancy this time. I certainly heard a laugh. Rather an odd hour and lonely spot for mirth."

He listened once more, and once more, fainter and farther off, came on the wind that laugh. Did he dream, or did a cry mingle with it? The next instant he started to his feet as the loud, rapid rush of carriage wheels sounded through the deep silence of the night. What did it mean? Had some one stealthily left the house and driven away? He rose, drew on his coat, and without his boots, quitted his room, and descended the stairs.

The house door stood ajar – some one had left them and driven away.

He walked to the gate. Nothing was to be seen, nothing to be heard. The gloomy night sky, the tossing trees, the soughing wind, nothing else far or near.

"It may have been Reuben or Joe Kent," he thought, "and yet at this time of night and in secret! And there was a cry for help, or what certainly sounded like one. No need to puzzle over it, however – to-morrow will tell. A New England farm-house is about the last place on earth to look for mysteries."

Mr. Gilbert went to bed again, and, somewhere in the small hours, to sleep. It was rather late when he awoke, and an hour past the usual breakfast time when, his toilet completed, he descended the stairs. The storm had come in pouring rain, in driving wind, in sodden earth, and frowning sky.

Aunt Hetty was alone, the table was laid for two, a delightful odor of coffee and waffles perfumed the air. She looked up from her sewing with a smile as he bade her good-morning.

"I was just wondering if you and Norry meant to keep your rooms all day. Oh, you needn't make any apology; it is as easy to wait breakfast for two as for one. The boys and me" – (they were the "boys" still to Miss Hester Kent) – "had ours at seven o'clock. Now sit right down Mr. Gilbert, and I'll go and rout out Norry, and you and her can have your breakfast sociably together. You'll have a good many sociable breakfasts alone together, I dare say, before long. Gloomy sort of day now, ain't it?"

"Norine is not down then?" the lawyer said, startled a little, yet hardly knowing why.

"Not yet. She ain't often lazy o' mornings, ain't Norry, neither. You wait, though. I'll have her down in ten minutes."

He looked at her as though to say something, changed his mind suddenly, and took seat. Miss Kent left the room. Five minutes passed. Then she came rushing down the stairs, and back to his side, all white and frightened.

"Mr. Gilbert, Norine's not in her room! Her bed was not slept in at all last night!" She sat down all at once, pressing her hand hard over her heart. "I'm," she said, panting, "I'm very foolish, I know, but it has given me a turn."

He rose to his feet. He knew it then! As well as he ever knew it in the after time, Richard Gilbert knew it all at that moment, Norine had fled.

"It was she, then, who left the house last night," he said, in a hushed voice; "and it was a man's laugh! Was it – My God! Was it – "

He stopped, turning white with the horror of that thought.

"Call your brothers," he said, his voice ringing, his face setting white and stern as stone. "We must search for her at once. At all costs we must find her – must bring her back. Quick, Miss Kent! Your brothers! I am afraid Norine has fled."

"Fled!"

"Fled – run away from home, for fear of marrying me. Don't you understand, Miss Kent? Call your brothers, I say every minute may be worth a life – or more! Quick!"

She obeyed – stunned, stupefied by the shock, the horror of her amaze. The two men rushed wildly in, frightened by their sister's incoherent words. Rapidly, clearly, Richard Gilbert told them what he had heard last night, told them even what he feared most.

"Thorndyke has come back, and either persuaded her to run away with him or forcibly abducted her. I feel sure of it. I heard him laugh, and her cry last night as plainly as I hear my own voice now. There is not a moment to be lost. On with your coats! out with the horses, and let us be off. Better she were dead than with him."

They are gone, and the woman sits alone, stunned, speechless, unable to realize it, only dumbly conscious that something awful has happened. Norine has gone! Fled on the very eve of her bridal with another man. Norine – little Norrie, who but yesterday seemed to her as a young innocent child.

The woman sits and weeps alone by her desolate hearth. The men go forth into the world, and forget their grief for the time in the excitement of the search – the men, who have the best of it always.

All his life long that miserable day remained in Richard Gilbert's memory more as a sickening dream than as a reality. He suffered afterward – horribly – to-day he was too dazed to suffer or feel. Whether found or not, Norine Bourdon was lost to him forever; dumbly he felt that, but she must be found. At all costs, she must be brought back from Laurence Thorndyke.

The two men acted passively under his orders – awed into silence by the look on his set, white face. Even to them that day remained as a dizzy dream. Now they were at the station, listening to Gilbert's rapid, lucid inquiries and description, and the clerk shook his head.

"No," he said; "so far as he could recollect, no two parties answering the description, had left by the earliest train that morning."

Then Mr. Gilbert went backward, and tried the registers of the various hotels for the name of Thorndyke. It did not appear, but in one of the lesser hotels the question was solved.

"Thar hain't ben nobody here answerin' to that air," said the Down-East innkeeper; "but thar hes ben a chap callin' himself Smith – John Smith. That may be the cove you want. Likely's not, ye know, if he's ben up to any of his larks, he would give a false name, ye know. He come Saturday night – staid Sunday and Monday, paid his bill last evenin', and made himself scarce. Shouldn't be a mite surprised, now, if he's the rooster you're after."

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