saw Jane and her emotion, that no slight misfortune had brought her.
“The obstinate villain! Not to tell me! And you, Jane, why do you beat about the bush? Is the child dead?”
“No, no; it is not Lucy, papa; her hands are going on quite well. It—it is about Laura.”
Lord Oakburn stared. “Has she fallen through a window?”
“It is worse than that,” said Jane, in a low tone.
“Worse than that! Hang it, Jane, tell it out and have done with it,” he cried, in a burst of passion, as he stamped his foot. Suspense to a man of his temper is not easy to bear.
“Laura has run away,” she said.
“Run away!” he repeated, staring at Jane.
“She quitted the house last night. She must have been gone when you left it. Don’t you remember, papa, you called to her and she did not answer? Not at first—not until it was too late to do anything—did I know she had run away.”
No suspicion of the truth dawned on Lord Oakburn, and Jane seemed to shrink from speaking more plainly. Compared to what he had dreaded—the death of Lucy—this appeared a very light calamity indeed.
“I’ll run her,” said he. “Where has she run too? What has she run for?”
“Papa, she has not gone alone,” said Jane, looking down. “Mr. Carlton is with her.”
“What?” shouted the peer.
“They have gone to be married, I fear. There can be no doubt of it.”
A pause of consternation on the part of the earl, and then the storm broke out. Jane had never been witness to such. He did not spare Laura, he did not spare Mr. Carlton; a good thing for both the offenders that they were not within his reach in that moment of passion.
Jane burst into tears. “Oh, papa, forgive me,” she said. “I ought to have told it you less abruptly; I meant to tell it you so; but somehow my powers failed me. I am grieved to be obliged to bring you this pain.”
Pain! yes it was pain to the honest old sailor, pain of the keenest sting. His beautiful daughter, of whom he had been so proud! His passion somewhat subsided, he sat down in a chair and buried his face in his hands. Presently he looked up, pale and resolute.
“Jane, this makes the second. Let her go as the other did. Never you mention her name to me again, any more than you mention that other one’s.”
And Jane felt all the more sad when she heard the injunction of forbiddance; an injunction which she should not dare to break.
She felt it all the more keenly because she had been confidently hoping that her father’s new rank as a peer of England, would cause the barrier of silence as to that "other one" to be raised.
A dinner hastily served was brought in for her, and when she had partaken of it, with what appetite she had, she proceeded to the station at Pembury to retake her departure, conducted to it in all the pomp and state that befitted her new position, as the Lady Jane Chesney.
But on poor Jane’s heart as she was whirled back to Great Wennock, there rested a sense of failure as to the expedition of the day. If she had but contrived to break it better! she thought in her meek self-reproach. It never occurred to that loving daughter that Lord Oakburn was just the man to whom such things cannot be “broken.”
CHAPTER XX.THE RETURN HOME.
The weather seemed to have taken an ill-natured fit and to be favouring the world with nothing but storms of hail and rain. The flight of Mr. Carlton and Laura Chesney had taken place on a Wednesday evening, and on that day week, Mr. and Lady Laura Carlton returned to South Wennock in some such a storm as the one they had departed in. They had been married in Scotland, and had solaced themselves with a few days’ tour since, by way of recompense for the mishaps attending their flight, but the weather had been most unpropitious.
Mr. Carlton’s establishment had enjoyed a week of jubilee. Orders had been received from that gentleman, written the day after his marriage, to have everything in readiness for the reception of their mistress; but the house had been so recently put in order on the occasion of the bringing in of the new furniture, that there was really nothing to do; a little impromptu cleaning, chiefly in the kitchens, they got a charwoman in to perform, taking holiday themselves.
But on this, the Wednesday night, they had resumed duty again, and were alike on their best behaviour and in their best attire to receive their master and now mistress. A post-carriage was ordered to be at the Great Wennock station to await the seven o’clock train, and the servants looked out impatiently.
When a carriage is bringing home folks from a wedding, it generally considers itself under an obligation to put forth its most dashing speed. So argued Mr. Carlton’s servants; therefore, long before half-past seven they were on the tiptoe of expectation, looking and listening for the arrival as the moments flew.
