“Gladly,” replied Hardcastle. “It has been my intention from the first to seek this woman out and question her. As soon as the doctor arrives, I will leave you in his charge, and set off without further delay.”
“No,” said Mr. Warden decisively, “you must set off at once; you do not know these mountain paths as I do, and to a stranger they are full of difficulties and dangers. Cassagnac is nearly six miles from here. You laugh at the distance. Five miles of these mountain paths is no light thing, I can assure you. If you start at once on one of the little mountain ponies, you will not arrive at Cassagnac till nearly sunset. Then you will have at least three miles further to go before you can get a night’s lodging, for you cannot possibly by any means return here until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow,” echoed Hardcastle sadly, and the thought flashed through his brain “what if he be not here tomorrow?”
Mr. Warden read his thoughts, “It is not so near as that Hardcastle,” he said quietly; “but it is not far away. Go at once, I implore you, for days and hours are getting precious to me now. Your doctor will be here before long; the people of the house are good and kind, and I feel at home with them. Go at once, I beg of you; let me not feel I have had my journey here for nothing. Ah! if my young strength would come back to me for one day, how gladly would I set off with you!” Then he leaned back in his easy chair wearied out, and once more begging Hardcastle to start immediately, closed his eyes as though he wished to sleep.
Hardcastle had no choice but to obey. He went at once to the innkeeper and his wife, and gave them strict orders to be constantly in and out of Mr. Warden’s room during his absence, and one to remain with him throughout the night. Then he wrote a few lines to the doctor, requesting him to remain until his return on the morrow. Even with these precautions his heart misgave him, and he could scarcely summon courage to start on his journey.
However, he felt further contention with Mr. Warden would be worse than useless—it would be positively injurious to him, so with another farewell glance at his friend, apparently sleeping quietly in the window seat, he set off on his little mountain pony.
Then it was that the Cevenol scenery burst upon him in all its wild grandeur. It was not one magnificent picture which met his eye, but a hundred or more, for every turn of the steep mountain path brought to view some fresh tableau of startling beauty. But the one thing which struck him most was the solitude, the intense silence which reigned everywhere. The rush and roar of the falling torrent, the scream of a distant wild bird, and once only the lowing of some oxen, evidently yoked to one of the rude cars of the country, these were the only sounds which broke the perfect stillness of the scene.
“Cassagnac,” he thought, “must be a very tiny village, for its highway to be so little frequented.” It had slipped his memory, so full it was of other thoughts, that none but the hardiest or poorest of the villagers would remain to face the terrible winter of these parts, when roads and valleys alike are choked with snow. In fact he was journeying on to a deserted village, for, by the end of November at latest, most of the peasants have taken refuge in more accessible localities.
Quietly and steadily the little pony kept on his way, never swerving an inch right or left; the gritty lava crunched under his feet, and now and then a huge boulder would fall from the path into the deep ravine below, with an echoing crash. Hardcastle had provided himself with a plan of the country—a rudely sketched one, drawn out by the landlord of the “Aigle des Montagnes,” for the use of his guests—but he scarcely needed it, so well did the little pony know his road.
As the afternoon went on the Château D’Albiac stood out plainly in front of him. But although apparently so near it was yet some little distance off, for the pathway, ever mounting, took many curves and bends, and Lord Hardcastle found he could not possibly arrive there before twilight set in. The sun sank lower and lower, the shadows lengthened and deepened, and although the air for the time of year was remarkably balmy and mild, Hardcastle could not repress a shudder as he took the last curve which brought him face to face with the old château. Was it the silence and loneliness of the place which so oppressed him, or was it that his nerves had been shaken by the strange events through which he had lately passed? A feeling he could not understand took possession of his mind. He felt almost like a man walking in a dream, seeing strange sights and hearing strange sounds, so unreal, so unlike anything he had ever seen was the mountain picture around him. There, straight in front of him, stood the old château, the highest point in the rocky landscape. Every door barred, every window shut, not to be opened till the following spring. The sun sank lower and lower, the shadows lengthened and deepened, the rocks began to take fantastic shapes against the evening sky, lighted in the west by the long golden and purple streaks of the dying day. Not a sound broke the intense silence of the place, and Hardcastle, throwing the reins on his pony’s neck, in perfect stillness drank in the beauty and glory of the scene. The sun, with a farewell scarlet light, fired the windows of the old château, danced upon peaks and crags of fantastic shape, and sent a flood of glory upon
