“Where is my maid?”
“I don’t know, my lady.”
“Find her, then, and tell her to request the young ladies to come here directly.”
Presently the fellow came back, with the alarming information that neither the young ladies nor Justine were to be found.
“Good heavens!” cried her ladyship, unable to credit her ears. “Not to be found? Impossible! Nonsense! They must be found! Why, my maid left me a short time since to seek for Miss Turquand and Miss Dormer. Oh! this is absurd!”
The man departed again on a search that proved useless. He presented himself again, fearfully, to tell her ladyship so.
The truth about Justine was that, recollecting her message suddenly, she had flown to Miss Turquand’s room, and then to all the probable and even improbable places where the young ladies might be found; but, of course, without coming on any trace of the missing ones.
Thoroughly alarmed, marveling what had become of them, and not daring to go back to her mistress, she had darted wildly all over the house, making inquiries of everybody she met.
Several of the domestics had seen the young ladies go out, but no one had seen them return.
Forgetful, in her sore affright, of her nervous tremors in a storm, Justine had rushed into the grounds, armed with a big umbrella snatched up in passing through the entrance-hall. Thus her otherwise unaccountable disappearance was to be explained.