On the morning following two travelers left a small inn which lay on the road-side, about ten miles north of Brandon. It was about eight o’clock when they took their departure, driving in their own carriage at a moderate pace along the road.

“Look, Langhetti,” said the one who was driving, pointing with his whip to an object in the road directly in front of them.

Langhetti raised his head, which had been bowed down in deep abstraction, to look in the direction indicated. A figure was approaching them. It looked like a woman. She walked very slowly, and appeared rather to stagger than to walk.

“She appears to be drunk, Despard,” said Langhetti. “Poor wretch, and on this bleak March morning too! Let us stop and see if we can do any thing for her.”

They drove on, and as they met the woman Despard stopped.

She was young and extraordinarily beautiful. Her face was thin and white. Her clothing was of fine materials but scanty and torn to shreds. As they stopped she turned her large eyes up despairingly and stood still, with a face which seemed to express every conceivable emotion of anguish and of hope. Yet as her eyes rested on Langhetti a change came over her. The deep and unutterable sadness of her face passed away, and was succeeded by a radiant flash of joy. She threw out her arms toward him with a cry of wild entreaty.

The moment that Langhetti saw her he started up and stood for an instant as if paralyzed. Her cry came to his ears. He leaped from the carriage toward her, and caught her in his arms.

“Oh, Bice! Alas, my Bicina!” he cried, and a thousand fond words came to his lips.

Beatrice looked up with eyes filled with grateful tears; her lips murmured some inaudible sentences; and then, in this full assurance of safety, the resolution that had sustained her so long gave way altogether. Her eyes closed, she gave a low moan, and sank senseless upon his breast.

Langhetti supported her for a moment, then gently laid her down to try and restore her. He chafed her hands, and did all that is usually done in such emergencies. But here the case was different—it was more than a common faint, and the animation now suspended was not to be restored by ordinary efforts.

Langhetti bowed over her as he chafed her hands. “Ah, my Bicina,” he cried; “is it thus I find you! Ah, poor thin hand! Alas, white wan face! What suffering has been yours, pure angel, among those fiends of hell!”

He paused, and turned a face of agony toward Despard. But as he looked at him he saw a grief in his countenance that was only second to his own. Something in Beatrice’s appearance had struck him with a deeper feeling than that merely human interest which the generous heart feels in the sufferings of others.

“Langhetti,” said he, “let us not leave this sweet angel exposed to this bleak wind. We must take her back to the inn. We have gained our object. Alas! the gain is worse than a failure.”

“What can we do?”

“Let us put her in the carriage between us, and drive back instantly.”

Despard stooped as he spoke, raised her reverently in his arms, and lifted her upon the seat. He sprang in and put his arms around her senseless form, so as to support her against himself. Langhetti looked on with eyes that were moist with a sad yet mysterious feeling.

Then he resumed his place in the carriage.

“Oh, Langhetti!” said Despard, “what is it that I saw in the face of this poor child that so wrings my heart? What is this mystery of yours that you will not tell?”

“I can not solve it,” said Langhetti, “and therefore I will not tell it.”

“Tell it, whatever it is.”

“No, it is only conjecture as yet, and I will not utter it.”

“And it affects me?”

“Deeply.”

“Therefore tell it.”

“Therefore I must not tell it; for if it prove baseless I shall only excite your feeling in vain.”

“At any rate let me know. For I have the wildest fancies, and I wish to know if it is possible that they are like your own.”

“No, Despard,” said Langhetti. “Not now. The time may come, but it has not yet.”

Beatrice’s head leaned against Despard’s shoulder as she reclined against him, sustained by his arm. Her face was upturned; a face as white as marble, her pure Grecian features showing now their faultless lines like the sculptured face of some goddess. Her beauty was perfect in its classic outline. But her eyes were closed, and her wan, white lips parted; and there was a sorrow on her face which did not seem appropriate to one so young.

{Illustration: “HE LEAPED FROM THE CARRIAGE TOWARD HER, AND CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS."}

“Look,” said Langhetti, in a mournful voice. “Saw you ever in all your life any one so perfectly and so faultlessly beautiful? Oh, if you could but have seen her, as I have done, in her moods of inspiration, when she sang! Could I ever have imagined such a fate as this for her?”

“Oh, Despard!” he continued, after, a pause in which the other had turned his stern face to him without a word—“Oh, Despard! you ask me to tell you this secret. I dare not. It is so wide-spread. If my fancy be true, then all your life must at once be unsettled, and all your soul turned to one dark purpose. Never will I turn you to that purpose till I know the truth beyond the possibility of a doubt.”

“I saw that in her face,” said Despard, “which I hardly dare acknowledge to myself.”

“Do not acknowledge it, then, I implore you. Forget it. Do not open up once more that old and now almost forgotten sorrow. Think not of it even to yourself.”

Langhetti spoke with a wild and vehement urgency which was wonderful.

“Do you not see,” said Despard, “that you rouse my curiosity to an intolerable degree?”

“Be it so; at any rate it is better to suffer from curiosity than to feel what you must feel if I told you what I suspect.”

Had it been any other man than Langhetti Despard would have been offended. As it was he said nothing, but began to conjecture as to the best course for them to follow.

“It is evident,” said he to Langhetti, “that she has escaped from Brandon Hall during the past night. She will, no doubt, be pursued. What shall we do? If we go back to this inn they will wonder at our bringing her. There is another inn a mile further on.”

“I have been thinking of that,” replied Langhetti. “It will be better to go to the other inn. But what shall we say about her? Let us say she is an invalid going home.”

“And am I her medical attendant?” asked Despard.

“No; that is not necessary. You are her guardian—the Rector of Holby, of course—your name is sufficient guarantee.”

“Oh,” said Despard, after a pause, “I’ll tell you something better yet. I am her brother and she is my sister—Miss Despard.”

As he spoke he looked down upon her marble face. He did not see Langhetti’s countenance. Had he done so he would have wondered. For Langhetti’s eyes seemed to seek to pierce the very soul of Despard. His face became transformed. Its usual serenity vanished, and there was eager wonder, intense and anxious curiosity—an endeavor to see if there was not some deep meaning underlying Despard’s words. But Despard showed no emotion. He was conscious of no deep meaning. He merely murmured to himself as he looked down upon the unconscious face:

“My sick sister—my sister Beatrice.”

Langhetti said not a word, but sat in silence, absorbed in one intense and wondering gaze. Despard seemed to dwell upon this idea, fondly and tenderly.

“She is not one of that brood,” said he, after a pause. “It is in name only that she belongs to them.”

“They are fiends and she is an angel,” said Langhetti.

“Heaven has sent her to us; we most preserve her forever.”

“If she lives,” said Langhetti, “she must never go back.”

“Go back!” cried Despard. “Better far for her to die.”

“I myself would die rather than give her up.”

“And I, too. But we will not. I will adopt her. Yes, she shall cast away the link that binds her to these accursed ones—her vile name. I will adopt her. She shall have my name—she shall be my sister. She shall be Beatrice Despard.

“And surely,” continued Despard, looking tenderly down, “surely, of all the Despard race there was never one so beautiful and so pure as she.”

Langhetti did not say a word, but looked at Despard and the one whom he thus called his adopted sister with an emotion which he could not control. Tears started to his eyes; yet over his brow there came something which is not generally associated with tears—a lofty, exultant expression, an air of joy and peace.

“Your sister,” said Despard, “shall nurse her back to health. She will do so for your sake, Langhetti—or rather from her own noble and generous instincts. In Thornton Grange she will, perhaps, find some alleviation for the sorrows which she may have endured. Our care shall be around her, and we can all labor together for her future welfare.”

They at length reached the inn of which they had spoken, and Beatrice was tenderly lifted out and carried up stairs. She was mentioned as the sister of the Rev. Mr. Despard, of Holby, who was bringing her back from the sea-side, whither she had gone for her health. Unfortunately, she had been too weak for the journey.

The people of the inn showed the kindest attention and warmest sympathy. A doctor was sent for, who lived at a village two miles farther on.

Beatrice recovered from her faint, but remained unconscious. The doctor considered that her brain was affected. He shook his head solemnly over it; as doctors always do when they have nothing in particular to say. Both Langhetti and Despard knew more about her case than he did.

They saw that rest was the one thing needed. But rest could be better attained in Holby than here; and besides, there was the danger of pursuit. It was necessary to remove her; and that, too, without delay. A closed carriage was procured without much difficulty, and the patient was deposited therein.

A slow journey brought them by easy stages to Holby. Beatrice remained unconscious. A nurse was procured, who traveled with her. The condition of Beatrice was the same which she described in her diary. Great grief and extraordinary suffering and excitement had overtasked the brain, and it had given way. So Despard and Langhetti conjectured.

At last they reached Holby. They drove at once to Thornton Grange.

“What is this?” cried Mrs. Thornton, who had heard nothing from them, and ran out upon the piazza to meet them as she saw them coming.

“I have found Bice,” said Langhetti, “and have brought her here.”

“Where is she?”

“There,” said Langhetti. “I give her to your care—it is for you to give her back to me.”