'Miss Mowbray—Emmeline—Oh! it will be impossible to overtake them!'
'Gone! my Lord?'
'Gone with Delamere!—Gone to Scotland!'
'Miss Mowbray was however in the house not an hour ago,' said Miss Galton; 'I saw her myself go up the garden just as we sat down to dinner.'
'Then she went to meet him!—then they went together!'—exclaimed Lord Montreville, walking round the room.
An assertion so positive staggered every one. They rose from table in confusion.
'Let us go up,' said Mrs. Ashwood; 'I can hardly think it possible, my Lord, that Miss Mowbray is gone, unless your Lordship absolutely saw them.'
Yet Mrs. Ashwood remembered that Delamere had been there in the morning, and that Emmeline had dined early alone, and had remained by herself all the rest of the day, under pretence of sickness; and she began to believe that all this was done to give her time to elope with Delamere.
She went up stairs; and Lord Montreville, without knowing what he did, followed her. The stairs were carpetted; any one ascending was hardly heard; and Mrs. Ashwood suddenly throwing open the door of her chamber, Lord Montreville saw her, with her handkerchief held to her face, hanging over a packet of papers which lay on the table before her.