At last the bogies had him in their grip.
By the time that Paul had got to the Ghyll his anxiety had reached the point of anguish. Perhaps it had been no more than a fancy, but he thought as he approached the house that a mist hung about it. When he walked into the hall his footsteps sounded hollow to his ear, and the whole place seemed empty as a vault. The spirit-deadening influence of the surroundings was upon him, when old Dinah Wilson came from the kitchen and looked at him with surprise. Clearly he had not been expected. He wanted to ask twenty questions, but his tongue cleaved to his mouth. The strong man trembled and his courage oozed away.
Why did not the woman speak? How scared she looked, too! He was brushing past her, and up the stairs, when she told him, in faltering tones, that her mistress was gone.
The word coursed through his veins like poison. "Gone! how gone?" he said. Could it be possible that his mother was dead?
"Gone by train," Paul repeated, mechanically, with absent manner.
"There's a letter left, sir; it's on the table in her room."
Recovering his self-possession, Paul darted upstairs at three steps a stride. His mother's room was empty; no fire in the grate; the pictures down from the walls; the table coverless; the few books gone from the shelf; all chill, voiceless, and blind.
What did it mean? Paul stood an instant on the threshold, seeing all in one swift glance, yet seeing nothing. Then, with the first return of present consciousness, his eye fell on the letter that lay on the table. He took it up with trembling fingers. It was addressed in his mother's hand to him. He broke the seal. This is what he read:
"I go to-day to the shelter of the Catholic Church. I had long thought to return to this refuge, though I had hoped to wait until the day your happiness with Greta was complete. That, in Heaven's purposes, was not to be, and I must leave you without a last farewell. Good-bye, dear son, and God bless and guide you. If you love me, do not grieve for me. It is from love of you I leave you. Think of me as one who is at peace, and I will bless you even in heaven. If ever the world should mock you with your mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the last. Good-bye, dear Paul; you may never know the day when this erring and sorrowing heart will be allowed, in His infinite pity, to join the choirs above. Then, dearest, from the hour when you read this letter, think of me as dead, for I shall be dead to the world."