Blind Love | Page 9

passed the milestone.
She stopped and looked at the sky.
The threatening of rain had passed away: signs showed themselves
which seemed to promise another break in the clouds. She waited. Low
and faint, the sinking moonlight looked its last at the dull earth. In front
of her, there was nothing to be seen but the road. She looked back--and
discovered the milestone.
A rough stone wall protected the land on either side of the road. Nearly
behind the milestone there was a gap in this fence, partially closed by a
hurdle. A half-ruined culvert, arching a ditch that had run dry, formed a
bridge leading from the road to the field. Had the field been already
chosen as a place of concealment by the police? Nothing was to be seen
but a footpath, and the dusky line of a plantation beyond it. As she
made these discoveries, the rain began to fall again; the clouds gathered
once more; the moonlight vanished.
At the same moment an obstacle presented itself to her mind, which Iris
had thus far failed to foresee.
Lord Harry might approach the milestone by three different ways: that
is to say--by the road from the town, or by the road from the open
country, or by way of the field and the culvert. How could she so place
herself as to be sure of warning him, before he fell into the hands of the
police? To watch the three means of approach in the obscurity of the
night, and at one and the same time, was impossible.
A man in this position, guided by reason, would in all probability have
wasted precious time in trying to arrive at the right decision. A woman,

aided by love, conquered the difficulty that confronted her in a
moment.
Iris decided on returning to the milestone, and on waiting there to be
discovered and taken prisoner by the police. Supposing Lord Harry to
be punctual to his appointment, he would hear voices and movements,
as a necessary consequence of the arrest, in time to make his escape.
Supposing him on the other hand to be late, the police would be on the
way back to the town with their prisoner: he would find no one at the
milestone, and would leave it again in safety.
She was on the point of turning, to get back to the road, when
something on the dark surface of the field, which looked like a darker
shadow, became dimly visible. In another moment it seemed to be a
shadow that moved. She ran towards it. It looked like a man as she
drew nearer. The man stopped.
"The password," he said, in tones cautiously lowered.
"Fidelity," she answered in a whisper.
It was too dark for a recognition of his features; but Iris knew him by
his tall stature--knew him by the accent in which he had asked for the
password. Erroneously judging of her, on his side, as a man, he drew
back again. Sir Giles Mountjoy was above the middle height; the
stranger in a cloak, who had whispered to him, was below it. "You are
not the person I expected to meet," he said. "Who are you?"
Her faithful heart was longing to tell him the truth. The temptation to
reveal herself, and to make the sweet confession of her happiness at
having saved him, would have overpowered her discretion, but for a
sound that was audible on the road behind them. In the deep silence of
the time and place mistake was impossible. It was the sound of
footsteps.
There was just time to whisper to him: "Sir Giles has betrayed you.
Save yourself."

"Thank you, whoever you are!"
With that reply, he suddenly and swiftly disappeared. Iris remembered
the culvert, and turned towards it. There was a hiding-place under the
arch, if she could only get down into the dry ditch in time. She was
feeling her way to the slope of it with her feet, when a heavy hand
seized her by the arm; and a resolute voice said: "You are my prisoner."
She was led back into the road. The man who had got her blew a
whistle. Two other men joined him.
"Show a light," he said; "and let's see who the fellow is."
The shade was slipped aside from a lantern: the light fell full on the
prisoner's face. Amazement petrified the two attendant policemen. The
pious Catholic Sergeant burst into speech: "Holy Mary! it's a woman!"
Did the secret societies of Ireland enrol women? Was this a modern
Judith, expressing herself by anonymous letters, and bent on
assassinating a financial Holofernes who kept a bank? What account
had she to give of herself? How came she to be alone in a desolate field
on a rainy