“I trust you have come to relieve my mind as to our poor runaway,” she began.
“Would to Heaven I could!” said the Major.
“Good Heavens! Then she has never reached you!”
“Certainly not.
“Nor her sister? Oh, surely she is with her sister!”
“No, madam, her sisters knows nothing of her. Cousin, you have children of your own! I entreat of you to tell me what you have done with her.”
“How should I have done anything with her? I who have been feeding all this time on the assurance that she had returned to you.”
“How could a child like her do so?”
“We know she had money,” said Lady Belamour.
“And we know,” said Betty, fixing her eyes on the lady, “that though she escaped, on the first alarm, as far as Sedhurst, and was there seen, she had decided on returning to Bowstead and giving herself up to you Ladyship.”