He flung his arm round her and held her to him a moment. The next, the door was burst open, and Sir Philip Cranstoun stood before them, white and quivering with rage. For a moment he stared at the pair before him, taking in every detail of Hilary’s appearance. Then he addressed his daughter in tones of withering scorn.
“May I ask who is this person with whom you appear to be on such extremely familiar terms?”
Stella slipped her hand within Hilary’s and gained strength from the contact.
“It is Mr. Hilary Pritchard,” she said, “the gentleman I have promised to marry.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SENDING OF THE TOKEN.
At seven o’clock that same morning, Sir Philip had been aroused from his slumbers by Dakin.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the spy, “but I can’t help thinking Miss Cranstoun has somehow got away. You see, you have taken away the key of her room, and I can see a good way in through the keyhole. And the bed’s empty; it doesn’t look as if it had been slept in, and I can’t see any sign of her walking about the room.”
With a muttered execration, Sir Philip dismissed Dakin, and, hastily dressing himself, repaired to the door of Stella’s room and rapped several times sharply upon the panels. Getting no answer, he turned the key in the lock and called to her to come out, before throwing the door open, to find that the bird had flown.
It was easy enough to see how she had escaped. The window was wide open, and the ivy a little below torn and disarranged. Rage and alarm combined to give Sir Philip an extremely bad quarter of an hour, as he turned over in his own mind all possible places to which she might have gone, while his horse was bearing him toward the nearest gates of the Chase enclosure.
Sir Philip had no idea of Hilary’s detention at the inn, but as the hostlery was on the direct road to Grayling, from which town he surmised that Stella would take the train for London, he resolved to stop for a moment to inquire whether anything had been seen of her.