The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-10-08 00:00:00

CHAPTER XXXIV.

OUT IN THE COLD.
Alone—that worn-out word,
So idly spoken and so coldly heard.
Yet all that poets sing, or grief hath known,
Of hopes laid waste knells in that word alone.'
—Lyrrow.

TRE twenty-four hours came to an end, and there
was no news from Biarritz, and Mr. Jarvis with a
terrible foreboding at his heart, prepared to set out
on his journey. Mrs. Churchill had telegraphed again
—they had sought far and wide for Helen and could
obtain no tiding of her except that she bad been seen,
as they had reported. From that time she might have
sunk into the earth or vanished into the air for any
news of her that had come to them.
There was nothing to be done more than they had
done. They had set the police to work, and they
had Bent everywhere that they could think of, and all
without success. Ihere had been nothing to their
knowledge to frighten or agitate her, much less to
take her away from home in that mysterious fa,bien.
There were oth, r and quite as anxious enquiries
about her as theirs, had they but known it. Horace
Gayford, all unknown to them, was sojourning at an
hotel at the other end of the town under another
name; he had not given it himself intentionany, nut
he had been addressed by it in mistake, and he had
allowed the mistake to continue—he determined that
it might he as well to keep himself out of sight tilt he
should have spoken to Helen, and made her, as he in-
tended, promise to be his wife.
He was half mad with his unholy passion, and
fevered and ailing as well, for he had taken no c:tre of
rese,f in the days that had passed since he left
Hillford. His cousin's death had affected him
more than he had allowed anyene to see
even taking his illness into consideration and
his nerves were in a strung up condition that was
most lamentable to witness. The people of the hotel
thought Mr. Greenwood' rather eccentric, but he
paid his way, and what he did with himself out of
doors was no business of theirs. They were not to
know that he spent his time watching the inmates of
one of the villas on the beach; nor that he was given
to walking wildly about the shore talking to himself
and apostrophiseng some one of whose existence they
were ignorant. They shrugged their thoulders and
murmured Anglais' whenever he did any Whig very
Outre, and thought no more about it.
They were a little alarmed when one day he did not
return as usual, and after a couple of hcurs or so a
messenger cane from the hospital to say that the
gentlt man had met with an accident, and required a
change of clothes before he could return to the hotel;
they were very curious when he plesently appeared
with a terribly scratched and cut face, and maey
bruises, but not otherwise injured, and they accep'ed
his explanation that he had missed his footing on the
rocks and fallen on the rough shingle undereeath.
He was not able to get out for two or three days,
and during that time was very inquisitive ahout
what was happening in the town. All the g ss4s of
the place was broueht to him, and amongst the rest
the story of the disappearance of the young Erigish
lady from Ardennes Villa. All sorts of versions wire
told him, each nore curious and outre than the las:.
At first the opinion of the gossips was that Helen had '
met with an accident and her body would be found
somewhere making sport for the sea and rocks; but
from west Jules said it name to be believed—no cue
quite knew why—that she had gone off with sr,meone,
that there had been a lover in the case who had
Spirited her away out of the country.
What shall I do? Where shall I look for her?'
Horace Gaylord said to himself, as he cursed his dis-
figured face and his ill-luck generally. 'lf it had
not been for that stupid fall I should have won by
th s time. She would have come to me, my darling,
and we should have faced the world, together. I
I should have had nothing to fear then.
He had been so intent on his own thoughts after
Helen had turned and left him on the beach—so bent
on exercising his will upon her, that be had not
heeded where he was going and had ahleo,t
uncomciously made his way to the very spot where
she had been sitting. He bad stepped forwerd a pace
too far, and felt his face strike the stones below b,fere
he quite lost conseiousness. But that some fiber-
men were out in a boat just opposite, in all proba-
bility his earthly career would have come to an un-
timely end with that disastrous tumble—fer the tide
was making, and it was a nook where it rose with
dangerous rapidity, and swept away everythirg that
it found lying there.

The men caught sight of him only just ir time. The
tide was coming up very close to where he lay, half
stunned by the fall and wholly unable to get up the
rocks again to the spot from which he had fallen.
They rowed in as far as they could, and dragged and
lifted him into the boat. He paid them liberally, and
left golden opinions at the hospital whither they took
him ;3 wliatever the English gentleman rgght be in the
way of eccentricity, hixwas in no way linear,. and no
one had reason to regret doing bur a service.

It via 4 some days before heas able to show hitnself
out of doors, and during that time nothing had been
hedrel of Helen.

S'The is 11()t dead,' he said to hirncrlf.

'lf she were

I should have heard of it-1 should know it. Nothing
untoward could happen to her—she could not be in
any win, any suffering—without its affecting me.'
Whether he was right or not, he so thoroughly
believed in his power over Helen, that he thought he
could resii,,,e the connection between them, wherever
she might be, when he had perfectly recov, red from
his ac‘tich-nr. It was most aggravating that the most
severe 'nuries sh ,uld have been to his face; the only
real risk had been to his eyes', and by the time that
he was allowed to have the bandages taken off his
forehead. and look about him once more, all sorts of
things hid happered at Biarritz.
'Any news. Louis?' he asked impatiently when the
waiter brought him his morning meal and the papers.
'None, monsieur.'
Has the young lay been found yet?'

„
The young lady had not been found, Louis replied,
hut the family with whom she had been staying had
gone away from Ardennes Villa.
Gone away!' It was all Horace Gaylord could
gap out in his astonishment, and in his gladness, too.
Helen was surely not far off, and he could do so
much more, and so much more surely, without other
influence at work upon her. She had evidently not
told anyone of his presence, or he would have been
iought out and qusstioned, and he waited to hear
what Louis would say next with ill-concealed im-
patience.
He had something of a story to tell. An English
gentleman had come in hot haste two days ago and
made all possible enquiries. He was still in the
neighbourhood, but he had advised the family return-
ing to England at once, and they had done so. Asked
what the gentleman was like, Louis replied that he had
seen him; he was elderly and keen-eyed, and had
a sharp way of speaking. How he came to know so
much about it was that his betrothed wife was one
of the servants in the villa the ladies had occupied,
and she was very sorry indeed to lose them.
Ware hawk,' Horace Gaylord said to himself,
when he heard of the elderly gentleman with the keen
eyes. 'They have sent for the lawyer, then. I'll keep
quiet till he is out of the way, Wherever my bonnie
Helen is, she is not with him, or he wouldn't have
needed to have come here to seek her. I shall win yet
in spite of them all.'
The news was true. Mrs. Churchill and the girls
clad g ,ne home. Mr. Jarvis had arrived with as little
Loss of time as was possible, and had raised their
spirits somewhat and cheered them by telling them
how impossible it was for any one to be quite lost;
there was some blunder. If Helen had any reason
for leaving Biarritz, she would surely make her way
either to his house or Hillford, and they would find
no had crossed her on the way. He did not believe it
nimcelf. He was as full of fears as they were, but it
would not do to let them see it; they must go back
and not stay there to be the object of everyone's
vulgar curiosity, and besides it would be well to be
Hillford when Helen returned.
He was puzzled more than he had ever been in his
life, and troubled too that he had to come away from
England just now. There was business there needing
his ciose attention, and some of it pertained to his new
client, Mr. Stone.
'I hope he understood my telegram,' he said to
himself, as the train whirled him along through
France. If he did not, and if by any chance Helen
should go to Elillford—Bah ! lam getting stupid, I
think. What have the two to do with each other?
What has happened to her? She has no correspon-
dents—no friends but the ones I know of. It's as
Lard to pierce ass London fog.'
It was, indeed. Be set about enquiries in a business-
like fashion that rather astonished the good people of
Biarritz and ferretted out all there was to be got at. He
interviewed Jules and the old woman; but with the
words that Jules had spoken to the missing girl,
Helen's existence as far as that place was concerned
teemed to have come to an end. She was
not to be traced to any railway station
within a good many mi:es of the town,
nor at any of the villages round about. Lawyer as he
was he felt at his wit's end; there was nothing for it
but to put the case in the hands of a skilful London
detective, who would come to the aid of the local
authorities and bring his experience to bear on the
mystery. The utter absence of all motive was the
one thing that rendered the matter so puzzling.
Helen had received no letters, Mrs. Churchill knew
that none had come to the house but what she could
account for, and Mr. Jarvis found that it was easy
now so mauy visitors had left to find out whether any
had been caled for at the post-office. The people
there knew the young lady perfectly well, but had
never had any letters for her but what came and went
in the ordinary fashion through the letter-carriers.
Mr. Jarvis had been in Biarritz a whole day before he
found c,-at anything about the gentleman of whom the
lady's maid spoke to Mary. That damsel, scared at
the turn events were taking and pitying her mistress's
evident distress, told with much trepidavon of the
gentleman that she had seen Miss Ramsay talking to
en tl.O'brach, and received about the sharpest repri-
mand for In r previous silence that it had ever been
her good or bad fortune to have addressed to her by
any one.
Mr. Jarvis told her that if anything had happened
to Miss Ramsay now, he should lay it all at her
door for not speaking sooner, and hoped he had
come to a solution of the enigma, thrugh it shocked
him blexpressibly to think for a moment that Helen
was capahie of duplicity as the girl's words seemed to
credit her with.
• Bah !' he said to himself. lam a fool. After
what Mrs. Churchill told me, after her il'ress too!
No, no, her heart is with that poor lad's body
ui.der the sea. Whoever the fellow is that she was
talking to. there's nothing of that sort init.

The gin's story must have been a mistake ac
Imagination, he thought. No one else had seen any
gentleman talking to Helen. He was not aware of the
existence of Mr. Greenwood, or if be heard of him at
all it was as the person who had met with an accident
the time of which did not quite tally with the story of
Helen's disappearance. It, was some time after she
had been seen there that the man was picked up, and
the two things did not appear to have any connection
s When
w:wasuwewacni
hs—t
shahutal
eHopl voc,rineerdrraaeeyechanheeskteri
Gm:
atahpiysiel
obefrmmoy.
with each other.
firrodr.
aH;a:nfeaayitl
en
3neynrdfpu
means
sufrheeldueitrnesttepchrai: vsashnaiongornei srahiobtifenl
horrible
aswp meael
inter-
viewa thatnyanyhow—to
wass th at sheget away
could
command. Her utter helplessness, all the strange
oppression seemed to give way and go off all at once,
terrified her beyond measure, and left her shaking and
pcwErlc as for some time. How the spell was broken,
or what caused the relief, the had no idea; it was
sufficient that it was gone, and she looked about her
for a means of escape.
She must get away from Biarritz at once, end she
must go alone and secretly, or he would fine her, and
the horror and the helplessness would come upon her
again. She subdued the trembling of her limb.; and
forced herself to think rationally, and then packed
her travelling hag with a few necessary articles, and
dressed herself in dark, quiet clothing and took a cloak
over her arm. The journey to England would not be
Bri very 1 rig, and she was well supplied with money.
Sh weuld go straight to Mr. Jarvis and ask him to
take Er r in, It waa no time for silence or reticence
about what had happened to her; she would tell her
guardian everything, and ask his protection and ad-
vice.
She wanted sadly to leave a letter for Mrs. Churchill,
to relieve the anxiety that she knew they would all
feel, but she did not dare.
They will forgive me,' she said, when they know
all, and it might lead to his finding me. He is capable
of anything. I shall not be safe till the sea is between
me and him.'
She started for the railway-station, intending to
take the first train that would teke her anywhere
sway Iron Biarrite ; but on her way there came ueeen
her again a feeling of the horror that was driving her
away. It might have been fancy, but there was the
same terrible feeling that she must go back to Horace
Gayford wherever be wag, and the same sense of b, ing
called. It did not last ;it was little more then
momentary. but it was enough. She must go and be
lost. But how? She would not go from the Biarritz
station. She would walk to a little place a coupe of
milers away towards the Spanish frontier, and take the
fret train from there to anywhere—no matter where,
So she got away.
Just when she met the fisherman Jules she had
recovered herself somewhat from the shock that had
ceme upon her, and she walked rapidly away to the
shelter of some trees that grew by the roadsVe. In
her hurry she took a wrong turn;ng and went down
a road that would have led her into a pastoral country
far from any means of transit. .Stoe was breathless
and flurried, and she discovered at the same moment
that she had taken the wrong turning, and that it was
beginning to get dark. Scared and helpless, she sat
down for a moment to recover herself, and a cart came
by, driven by an old man, who whistled as he came
and looked kindly and respectable.
He caught sight of her sitting there, and divined at
once that she wa. samething different to the ordinary
run of women who m.ght he expected to be sitting by
the wayside. He stopped his horse and went up to
her, asking in his old-fashioned politene s if here was
anything he could do for her. In reply, Helen asked
him where he was going, and starfed as he named a
place of snee ten miles away on the coast. She had never
been to Orgnelet ; but she had heard of it as a fibbing-
place from vih,ch bolts went a considerable distanc.v.
Would it be possible for her to evade her persecte or
by taking a roundabout way like that of going to
England—at any rate it was safety and se,,resy for
the present. She was brave, as tar as she herself was
coneerned, and spoke French perfectly enough to be
at home anywhere.
She told the man she had missed her way, that she
had intemied going in his direction, and asked him
if he would take her with him. Whatever surprise
he might have felt was overcome by the reward she
offered for the transit and his protection thereon, and
she climbed into his cart, and was soon jolting along
on the rather rough road that led to Orgnelet. She
learned that her escort did not really belong to that
place, that he was going on the next morning on the
first stage of a journey to Paris, the purport of which
be did not m I;.e quite clear to Helen. She seemed to
ether that ho was a kind of general dealer, or
phuawt
hkeerr,uapniatbothueghptlaacnedwsholedreasbhaelowdegnedt.
himself,
uhe
care
eereo
fyr
hheor wwohjuiledshbee
se,staaeijryd
e;iigtl.andertioe wrecaseaiv
_
cellierr a nwdomtaakne

Helen asFured him she did not want to stay any
longer thin she could help, and asked him where the
boats w,lit that traded from Orgnelet. and the old
taan flourished his hands in the air, and clf-e ared they
went et.• 67.10? ere —along the coast to Rontifort and La
Rochelle, and )omethues up the Garonne as far as
Bourg. 'there was no limit to the trade of Orgnelet
whf,n things were prosperoun, and fish p'entiful.
Helen had been many times half asleep, and she
begun to think that every bone in her lac would be
dislocated by the shaking of the cart., when she
arrived at her destination, and was lifted out at the
door of a tiny hositetrie that seemed to her w sued
eyes to be full of rough men and rougher women all
talking at once. Slit) was agreeably surprised to find
that the hostess wa.s a clean, tidy women, and the
terrible people were only the fisher folk in their
working attire, some of whom were going to sea when
the tide served.
A cup of coffee, and a baain of cold water combined
with a rough towel and some yellow soap, very
strong, but very invigorating, set her up wonderfully,
and she was soon asking about the means of transit
to La Rochelle; it was a large place she knew,
and she would be able to get from there without
notice. The men who were going there did not cheat
her very much—they only a•ked about three times
as much as would have paid them well ; and in two
hours from the time she arrived in the little village of
Orgnelet, she was tossing about on the rough sea in
a boat with four amphibious-looking men, and was
told that there would be a trifle of wind, but that she
need not, be af raid—they would make her very
comfortable and land her quite safe at La Rochelle.

(To be continued.)