“Yes—certainly,” pressing her parting kiss upon the lips of her friend.
The promised letter, announcing Marguerite’s safe arrival at Plover’s Point, was received; but it was the last that came thence; for though Cornelia promptly replied to it, she received no second one. And though Cornelia wrote again and again, her letters remained unanswered. Weeks passed into months and brought midsummer. Colonel Compton with his family went to Saratoga, but without meeting Miss De Lancie. About the middle of August they came to Berkeley; but failed to see, or to hear any tidings of their friend.
“Indeed, I am very much afraid that Marguerite may be lying ill at Plover’s Point, surrounded only by ignorant servants who cannot write to inform us,” said Cornelia, advancing a probability so striking and so alarming, that Colonel Compton, immediately after taking his family back to Richmond, set out for Plover’s Point to ascertain the state of the case in question. But when he arrived at the plantation, great was his surprise to learn that Miss De Lancie had left home for New York, as early as the middle of April, and had not since been heard from. And this was the last of September. With this information, Colonel Compton returned to Richmond. Extreme was the astonishment of the family upon hearing this; and when month after month passed, and no tidings of the missing one arrived, and no clew to her retreat, or to her fate was gained, the grief and dismay of her friends could only be equaled by the wonder and conjecture of society at large, upon the strange subject of Marguerite De Lancie’s disappearance.
CHAPTER III.
THE FUGITIVE BELLE.
“What’s become of ‘Marguerite’
Since she gave us all the slip—
Chose land travel, or sea faring,
Box and trunk, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer this old town?