Chapter XXVIII: Entrapped

In the thick darkness that wrapped them around, Nina made a convulsive effort to tear herself away, but she was like a baby, indeed, in the clasp of Kitty’s strong arms, and the fiercer her struggles the tighter the maid held her.

“Oh, my dear young lady, what do you want to go away for?” she cried, reproachfully. Haven’t you given us trouble enough already, running away like you did, and us thinking you were dead by that dreadful laudanum? And why did you do it, anyhow? Didn’t you know it would break all our hearts to lose you, and you the last one of your race! Be quiet, my lamb, my darling, for I shall not let you go again, oh, no, no, never!”

“Let me go, Kitty! How dare you keep me against my will?” Nina cried, sharply, making frantic efforts to escape from her captor. “Let me go, and keep my secret for me, please! I went away because I was unhappy here, and I drank the laudanum, too, but Doctor Fielding was so cruel he would not let me die! But I must go away again to-night, and I shall never come back to my old home! No one must ever know that I am alive, Kitty!”

Significant silence followed on the part of Kitty. She held the frail, weak girl tightly in the clasp of one arm, and with the other managed to strike a light again. By its soft clear beams she gazed into Nina’s face with dismay.

“Oh, my dear young lady, what have you been doing to yourself?” she exclaimed, “You are all thin and pale, and your eyes like saucers!”

“I have been ill, Kitty, I have been very near death,” said Nina, nestling her golden head wearily against the faithful creature’s breast and ceasing her fitful, futile efforts at escape.

“Near death! I should think so indeed,” cried the maid, “You look like a real ghost!”

Nina only sighed and clung closer to the maid. Oh, how good it seemed to be back with her dear, kind Kitty again, after all she had endured. The girl had been her childhood’s nurse, and her girlhood’s maid, always dearly loved by Nina, who looked upon her as the only present link between her and that happy past, before her idolizing parents died and left her alone. Her love for the girl was more like that of friend for friend than of mistress for servant. She said to herself that since Kitty had caught her there would be no harm in lingering a little while. Kitty would tell her something of all that had happened since she went away, and then she would persuade the good creature to let her go away again, perhaps, even, Kitty would go with her. The future would not be quite so dark and desolate if she had this true soul to lean upon.

So she said, coaxingly:

“I will stay with you a little while, Kitty, dear, and then you must let me go. But tell me something about them all--about Aunt Drusilla, and--yourself--and--and”--she broke down, crimson with shame and pain, angry with herself because in her secret heart she was longing for tidings of Talbot Strangemore.

“I love him still! cruel, neglectful, and unkind as he has been to me, I cannot tear his image from my heart!” she moaned within herself.

The maid was quick to interpret what she meant by her broken-off speech.

“About Mr. Strangemore,” she said, “Oh, my dear, he went back to Europe after he saw that piece in the paper about your taking the laudanum. He thought you were dead--we all thought so--and he said he could not bear to stay at Selwyn Heights after that.”

“But--but”--Nina began, and broke off the sentence--indeed it was interrupted by a startling occurrence.

The door had suddenly opened wide and a slight figure all in white, stood upon the threshold gazing in at them. When it saw the light upon the table, and the startled women, it suddenly turned around and fled swiftly and silently down the gloomy hall.

“Great heaven, that dreadful woman, she is here yet,” Nina exclaimed, but her words were drowned by a succession of piercing shrieks from Kitty that brought every inmate of the great house rushing to the scene.