The driver was cold and cross, but he was anxious to get back to Shorncliffe, and he drove very fast.
Clement sat with the window down, and the frosty wind blowing full upon his face as he looked out for Margaret.
But he reached Shorncliffe without having overtaken her, and the fly crawled under the ponderous archway beneath which the dashing mail-coaches had rolled in the days that were for ever gone.
"She must have got home before me," the cashier thought; "I shall find her up-stairs with my mother."
He went up to the large room with the bow-window. The table in the centre of the room was laid for dinner, and Mrs. Austin was nodding in a great arm-chair near the fire, with the county newspaper in her lap. The wax-candles were lighted, the crimson curtains were drawn before the bow-window, and the room looked altogether very comfortable: but there was no Margaret.
The widow started up at the sound of the opening of the door and her son's hurried footsteps.
"Why, Clement," she cried, "how late you are! I seem to have been sitting dozing here for full two hours; and the fire has been replenished three times since the cloth was laid for dinner. What have you been doing, my dear boy?"
Clement looked about him before he answered.
"Yes, I am very late, mother, I know," he said; "but where's Margaret?"
Mrs. Austin stared aghast at her son's question.