Ay! she is going "to church," from whence she will come out Alice Lovelace, not Alice Adair—never our own pretty Alice any more. As this thought strikes me, I give a loud sob outside the door, which makes her turn apprehensively; so I cram my handkerchief into my mouth, and choke inwardly. And now we are walking with her across the sodden grass of the dismal, bare garden, towards the postern gate, where Charles Lovelace waits with travelling carriage and greys.
"Good-bye," she says, looking into our faces and weeping passionately. Tears do not matter now; there are no more appearances to be kept up.
"Good-bye," say Milly and I, weeping too, but with a difference. Through her present sorrow the gay bright future looks; we know what we are going back to.
"Good-bye," says Charles Lovelace, kissing our dripping countenances.
"Good-bye, good-bye!" cries Alice, clinging about our necks in turn.
And now she is in the carriage, the valet jumps into the rumble, and they are off; Alice's lovely pale face looking out of the window to the very last moment, away, away, through the cold winter morning. A couple of hundred yards away, papa is walking about, happy in the comfortable belief that he holds all our lives in his own hand, and that he can mete us out happiness or misery, according to his sovereign will. Well, one at least of his white slaves has turned rebel; he will know it by twelve of the clock, and then———
"Dilly, Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed," I say to Milly, as we go heavily back to the house. "After all, we can only be killed once."
