The girl succeeded in hoodwinking the men servants
by dressing herself up in a mantle of her mistress's, pretending she
would have supper out in the park as the night was so fine and warm, so
that by the time the fraud was discovered and the alarm given, Henrietta
had had a start of several hours and although the men, fearful of the
anger of their master when he should return and find his wife flown,
searched in every direction with lighted torches they were unable to
discover a trace of the missing lady.
Terror lends strength to the most feeble. Ordinarily Henrietta was so
weak that it was as much as she could do to promenade through the park.
But to-day after a two hours' run over stones and through briars and
bushes, at midnight, she still did not feel weary. From the top of a
hill she looked back. She could still see the tower of the castle of
Hidvar in the valley, but it looked blue through the mist in the
distance and then she hastened down into the valley whose steep
overhanging sides hid her even from the moonlight.
The night was noiseless, the forest dark. Now and again a humming night
beetle circled round and round her and obstinately pursued her as if he
also was a spy sent after her. The poor thing's heart throbbed
violently. What if she had lost her way? What if she fell into the hands
of the robbers whom they were now actually pursuing through the woods?
Yet still greater was her terror of Hidvar and a hundred times more
homelike was the dreadful forest with its giant trees speaking in their
sleep than the tapestried walls of the Castle of Hidvar.
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