I said I was sure they would not, though an hour before I would have asked, Why not?
"Lord Helmstone couldn't be expected to put himself out. I wish I had not let the servants go to bed!" she exclaimed. "Why didn't you think of it? Of course, they should have gone and brought Bettina home."
I saw now how right and proper this would have been.
Half past eleven.
"It is very strange," I said.
"Go and look out again, you may see a lantern, or the motor-lamps."
I leaned out into the fresh-smelling darkness, and I saw nothing, I heard nothing.
I hung there, unwilling to draw in my head and admit the world without was empty of Bettina. She had been thrown out of the car. She was lying by the roadside somewhere, dead, that was why she didn't come home.
Suddenly I thought of Gerald Boyne. What if, after all, he had been dining there. He would be sure to want to bring Bettina home. Yes, and those casual Helmstones would turn Bettina over to him without a thought. A man Ranny wouldn't let his sister dance with in a room full of her friends.... Bettina, setting out with Gerald Boyne to cross the lonely heath—and never reaching home.
I knew all this was wild and foolish ... then why did these imaginings make me feel I could not bear the suspense another moment? I shut the window and turned round. "You must let me go for her," I said.