The girl looked at him with something very like astonishment in her face.
"Did you not know, sir—" she asked, somewhat curiously, as she hesitated on the threshold.
"Know what?" he demanded, brusquely. "What is there to know, my good girl?"
"Miss Bain has gone, sir," she replied. "She left the place for good quite an hour ago!"
Varrick was completely astounded. He could scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses; his ears must have deceived him.
At this juncture the matron entered. She corroborated the maid's statement— Miss Bain had left the place quite an hour before.
"Could you tell me where she went?" he asked.
"She intended taking the train for New York. She was very weak, by no means able to leave here, sir. We tried to keep her; but it was of no use; she had certainly made up her mind to go, and go she did!"
It seemed to Hubert Varrick that life was leaving his body.
How he made his way out of the place, he never afterward remembered.