"Above an hour ago?" cried Clement Austin, heedless of the man's impertinence in his own growing anxiety; "do you mean to say that the young lady has left?"
"She have left, above a hour ago."
"She went away from this house an hour ago?"
"More than a hour ago."
"Impossible!" Clement said; "impossible!"
"It may be so," answered the footman, who was of an ironical turn of mind; "but I let her out with my own hands, and I saw her go out with my own eyes, notwithstanding."
The man shut the door before Clement had recovered from his surprise, and left him standing in the porch; bewildered, though he scarcely knew why; frightened, though he scarcely knew what he feared.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MARGARET'S RETURN.
For some minutes Clement Austin lingered in the porch at Maudesley Abbey, utterly at a loss as to what he should do next.
Margaret had left the Abbey an hour ago, according to the footman's statement; but, in that case, where had she gone? Clement had been walking up and down the road before the iron gates of the park, and they had not been opened once during the hours in which he had waited outside them. Margaret could not have left the park, therefore, by the principal entrance. If she had gone away at all, she must have gone out by one of the smaller gates—by the lodge-gate upon the Lisford Road, perhaps, and thus back to Shorncliffe.