"'Oh, yes, ma'am, something dreadful!' he answered. 'I scarcely know how to tell you. Miss Mignon is lost.'
"'Miss Mignon lost, Browne! What do you mean?' I said. 'How can she be lost?'
"'I only know she is,' he said, in a shaking voice. 'That silly idiot Hortense went out with her about three o'clock, with orders to go into the Park. She--this is her story, I cannot vouch for the truth of it, ma'am--she admits that she took her first to look at the shop-windows in the High Street, and that then she thought she would like to go into the Gardens, and that while there she fell asleep. The afternoon being so warm, she sat on a bench asleep till half-past five, and when she woke up with a start, feeling very shivery and cold--and serve her right, too!--Miss Mignon was gone; there was not a trace of her to be seen.'
"'If the silly creature had come straight home,' Browne went on, 'something might have been done; but instead of doing that, she must go into hysterics--with nobody to see her, even!--and then go crying about from one gate to the other, wandering about, as if Miss Mignon would be likely to be sitting on the edge of the pavement waiting for her. At last--I suppose when she began to get hungry'--Browne went on savagely, 'she bethought herself of coming home, and there she landed herself at nine o'clock, and has been steadily going out of one faint into another ever since. I have sent James round to the police station,' he said, 'but I thought I had better come straight away and fetch you, ma'am.'
"Well," Mrs. Ferrers went on, "I said good-night to our hostess and sent for your father, and we went back at once. We were five miles from home, and it was half-past eleven when we got there. And there was no trace of Mignon. James had taken a cab and gone round to all the police stations within reach of the house, and Humphie was waiting for us, shaking like a leaf and as white as death, and at the sight of us Hortense went off into wild hysterics again and shrieked till--till--I could have shaken her," Mrs. Ferrers ended severely.
"Well, your father and I just stood and looked at one another. 'Where can she be?' I said. 'Can't you get any information out of Hortense? Surely the woman must know where she was last with her.'
"But, as your father said, the Gardens were all deserted and closed hours ago. She was not at all likely to be there. Almost without doubt she had strayed out into the busy street, had then found herself in a strange neighbourhood, and--and I simply shuddered to think what might have happened to her after that.
"For the time we were helpless; we did not know, we could not think what to do next. A policeman came up from the nearest station as we stood considering what we should do. But he had no news; he shook his head at my eager inquiry. 'No, madam,' he said, 'I'm sorry we have no news of the little lady; but we telegraphed to all the stations near, but no lost child has been brought in. She must have fallen in with some private person.'
"As you may imagine," Mrs. Ferrers went on, "I felt dreadfully blank--indeed, your father and I simply stood and looked at one another. What should we, what could we do next? To go out and search about the streets at nearly midnight would be like looking for a needle in a truss of hay--we could not send a crier out with a bell--we were at our wits' end. Indeed, it seemed as if we could do nothing but wait till morning, when we might advertise.
"Then just as the policeman was turning away, another policeman came and knocked at the door. A little girl had been taken into the police station at Hammersmith, a pretty fair-haired child about six years old, who did not know where she lived, and could not make the men there understand who she was.