e. The bridal train was awaiting her
down stairs. Soon they would send to summon her again. How could she meet
them? What could she say to them? How could she ever look upon the face
of the Duke of Hereward and _live_?

She must fly at once. No, there was no time to write a note and leave it
pinned on her dressing-table cushion. Besides, what could she say in her
note? Nothing; or nothing that she would say.

She must go and make no sign. She forced herself to rise from the floor
and commence hurried preparations for immediate flight.

In all the tumult of her soul, some intuition guided her through her
hasty arrangements to take the most effectual means to elude pursuit and
baffle discovery.

She took off her handsome mourning dress of black silk and crape that she
had put on to travel in, and she packed it, with the black felt hat,
vail, sack and gloves that belonged to the suit, in one of her trunks,
which she carefully locked.

Then from some receptacle of her left-off colored dresses, she selected
a dark-gray silk suit, with sack, hat, vail and gloves to match. And in
that she dressed herself.

Then she reflected.

"They will think that I went away in my mourning dress, which they will
miss. If they describe me, they will describe a lady in deep mourning. If
any one comes in pursuit, they will look for a young woman in black,
and pass me by, because I shall wear gray and keep my vail down."

Then she concealed in her bosom all the cash she had in hand, being about
fifteen hundred pounds in Bank of England notes, which she had previously
drawn out for her own private uses during her bridal tour. This she
thought would go far to meet the unknown expenses of her future. She also
took her diamonds. She might have to sell them, she thought, for support.

Then, when she was quite ready, dressed in the dark gray suit, sack, hat,
vail and gloves, and with a small valise in her hand, she went into her
bath-room, and to the back door at the head of the private stairs leading
down to the little garden of roses that was her own favorite bower.

She watched for a few seconds, to be sure that no one was in sight, and
then she slipped swiftly down the stairs and crossed the garden to a
narrow back door, which she quickly opened and passed through, shutting
it after her. It closed with a spring and cut off her re-entrance there,
even if she had been disposed to turn back.

But she was not.

She glanced nervously up a