His servant came up with a startled look in his face, and the expression of surprise to be read there increased as his master said, "Desire my bill to be prepared, and have everything ready to start by the night train for Strasbourg."
"That's done," he exclaimed, as the servant retired. "By to-morrow I shall be in the Black Forest, and there I can stay for a day or two, and draw out the plan of my book; then if I settle myself in the neighbourhood of one of the large university towns, I shall not want for help in the way of books; and converse with the German philosophers will be pleasant and useful relaxation for me, so that in six months I may hope to have it in the publisher's hands. Now I must write letters to England, to countermand all my orders. Poor Earnscliffe Court! thou art doomed ever to be deserted! ever to be without a mistress!"
Sighing deeply, Mr. Earnscliffe opened his desk and began to write.
At twelve o'clock that night--the hour when, on the previous one, they had all met in the brilliant _salle_ of the Hotel de Ville--an express train was whirling Mr. Earnscliffe away from Paris, Flora Adair was walking restlessly up and down her room, and Mary Elton lay upon her deathbed.
The doctor had just left her, after having, as gently as possible, told Mrs. Elton that the last ray of hope for her daughter's recovery was gone,--she was sinking, and now it was only a question of how long she might hold out. Probably she might linger until the same time to-morrow, but it was also possible that the end might come much more quickly.
The night-lamp burned dimly, the nurse dozed in an armchair, and Mrs. Elton knelt in despairing grief beside her dying child, her head pressed down upon the bed-clothes, as she tried to smother the sound of her convulsive sobs, and prevent them from disturbing Mary; and she thought to herself, "I have killed her by letting her go to that ball. I saw that she was not fit to go, and yet through weakness I allowed it. Mary, my most precious child, my firstborn, do not leave me! What can the others be to me, if you are taken? Great God, in pity give me back this favourite one, or let me die with her!"
Mary was indeed Mrs. Elton's "most precious child;" she resembled her father strikingly in appearance, as also in many points of disposition, and far more than either Charles or Helena; therefore was she dearer to her mother than they were. Her husband's memory was the passion of Mrs. Elton's existence, as he himself had been whilst he lived; so now she felt that to lose the child who resembled him most was like losing all that remained to her of him, and to this was added the torture of believing that she might have saved her if she had only been firm about the ball. Her agony in her utter loneliness was piteous; her favourite child was dying, and the other two were far away; they had been telegraphed for, but neither of them could possibly have come to her as yet. Helena was expected to arrive early in the morning, but Mrs. Elton could make no guess as to when her son might come. He was quartered far up in the north of Scotland, and of course he could not start instantly on receipt of the telegram, as Helena would; he must wait to get leave, and thus the time of his arrival could not be counted upon.