“No, sir,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “There was a chaise sent here two hours ago for a gentleman who came by last train; nothing of the kind is to be had here, unless it’s ordered aforehand from the town.”
“Is that chaise likely to return hither?”
“Can’t say, sir,” answered the man. “I believe that it took a doctor and nurse to a place where a nobleman’s lying ill, who was picked up to-day from the sea.”
“The sea!” echoed the astonished listeners.
“Fallen out of a balloon, as I understand,” said the man. “There was a party of three, and they were all saved by one of our fishing-smacks that was just coming in from a cruise.”
“Oh, guide us to the place where they are!” exclaimed the countess.
“Can’t leave the station, ma’am,” replied the official, looking with some curiosity and interest on the pale, eager face on which the light of the gas-lamp fell; “besides, I’ve not been long at this place, and don’t know exactly where the cottage lies.”
“Now I think on it,” said the station-man, slowly, “the doctor asked me when the last train would go back to Exeter to-night. I take it he’s likely to return; and you could have the chaise that brings him.”
“When does that train pass?” inquired the vicar.
“Within an hour,” replied the man, glancing round at the large clock behind him. “Will not the ladies walk into the waiting-room?—it is better than standing out here on the platform.”
“It appears our best course,” said the vicar, addressing the countess, “to await here the return of the doctor, and avail ourselves of the only conveyance that seems likely to call here to-night.”
“Oh no, no!” exclaimed Annabella, wildly; “every minute of delay is an age in purgatory! The doctor may never come. Augustine will not suffer him to quit Dashleigh for an hour! I wait for no one; I will try to find my way to the cottage;—I go at once, even if I go alone!”
As Annabella remained firm in her resolution, the party, after gleaning such scanty information as the man at the station could give, and procuring from him a lantern, set out on their dreary way. Perfect darkness is seldom known in Devon on a night in May, but clouds and the absence of the moon rendered the atmosphere unusually obscure. Strange and phantom-like looked the black shadows of their own forms to the travellers, as the glare of the lantern cast them on the chalky cliffs that bordered their road. The path was rough and steep, strewn with stone boulders here and there, which seemed to have rolled down from the rocky heights above.