The maiden was not kept long in doubt. It was her own father that she saw in the chaise, a few seconds afterwards, urging on the pony to a frantic pace, plunging through the drifted snow as if life or death hung on its speed! Joe sat behind, while his master drove as Emmie had never seen her father drive before.
“What can be the matter?” exclaimed Emmie; “papa has forgotten even his greatcoat, and the weather is so cold, and it looks as if a storm would come on!” She watched the chaise till it disappeared behind intervening trees and brushwood.
Susan re-entered the room as her young lady, anxious and wondering, turned from the casement.
“Do you know where my father is going?” Emmie inquired of her maid.
“Master is going to London, miss,” was the answer; “but I doubt whether the pony can gallop fast enough to take him in time for the train. Master was in great haste, or he would have come to bid you good-bye.”
“What takes him to London?” cried Emmie.
“Oh, this bank-note forgery business,” said Susan, the look of uneasiness passing again over her face. “Master called me to give you a message, miss. He says that while the police have charge of the house, he—he does not wish you to speak to them, miss, or question them about the matter which has brought them here. Master is anxious about you. He has ordered me to take care that no one should disturb or intrude upon you, Miss Trevor.”
“The police are not likely to disturb the innocent, nor to intrude on ladies,” said Emmie, smiling from the pleasant assurance of safety conveyed by their presence in the mansion. “If my father does not wish me to question them or see them, of course his will shall be obeyed. I must depend on you for my information, or—where is my brother, Master Bruce?”
“I cannot tell, miss; he is not in the house; he must have gone out,” replied Susan in a flurried manner. The quiet, respectable, lady’s-maid had never before been examined by a superintendent of police, and her usual self-possession had forsaken her on that eventful morning.
“Bruce must have heard something of this warrant against Standish,” thought Emmie; “perhaps he has gone off early to S——, to help in the search after this daring impostor. I am glad that he felt well enough to do so; but how he could have received such early information of what has occurred, I know not.”