“There,” said Elfie, “she has been sleeping six hours now! The clock has struck seven. She ought to be waked up for her own sake.”
“I will go and look at her. If she is still sleeping quietly, I will not wake her, but I will have the dinner served at once. If however she is awake and feeling well, I will get her up and help her to dress.”
So once again Erminie went up stairs and entered her chamber.
All shady, cool and quiet as before.
She stole to the bedside and drew the curtains.
The bed was empty.
“She has got up and gone to the bath-room. She was always a duck in her love of laving in water,” thought Erminie, feeling no sort of uneasiness at her guest’s absence from the chamber.
But to assure herself of the truth of her own surmise, she went to see if the bath-room door was shut. She found the door wide open and the room empty.
Perplexed and anxious, she made a hasty tour through all the rooms on that floor, then ran up to the story above and searched the rooms there, then up into the attic and searched that.
“I know she is deranged, and she may be lurking somewhere about the house with a fit upon her,” said Erminie, as she hurried from place to place in her vain quest.