“Of this? Of what?”
“Helen! Where is she?”
“Helen? In bed and asleep I hope. What do you mean?”
“I missed her somewhere about eleven. I have not seen her since.”
The Resident looked curiously at Mr Perowne, whose flushed face and excited manner seemed to suggest that he had been playing the host too freely during the evening, and to his own deterioration in balance.
“Tired, and gone to bed. A bit peevish with weariness,” suggested the Resident, who drove back a curious sense of uneasiness that troubled him.
“No,” said Mr Perowne, hoarsely; “she has not gone to bed, and the house and the gardens have been searched again and again. Do you know anything of this?”
“I? Absurd! I left in good time. I bade her good-night when she was talking to the chaplain; he was trying to persuade her to let him cover her shoulders with the shawl he carried.”
The Resident ceased speaking to dwell for a moment upon the luminous look he had seen Helen bestow upon the chaplain—a look meant, he told himself, to annoy him, while he knew that it would give poor Rosebury food for sweet reflection during weeks to come.
“It is very strange,” said Mr Perowne excitedly; and his haggard gaze was directed about the place, as if he half expected to find that Helen was there. “Where did you see her last, do you say?”