With a throbbing heart and shining eyes, she found herself inside the house, and, as she believed, near to the kind Yankee friend in whom she took such an earnest interest.
Every one was asleep at this uncanny hour of the dawn, she knew. Lightly and fearlessly she went from room to room until she had explored the whole house in a fruitless quest for Eliot Van Zandt.
To her dismay and disappointment, her careful search was utterly unavailing, although from her knowledge of the house she was certain that she had left not a room unvisited. She had even peeped, by the aid of a hall-chair, into the transom over madame's door, and then into Mima's, too; but the sight of the latter placidly snoring among her pillows, and of madame slumbering sweetly, as if no unrepented sins lay heavy on her conscience, was all that rewarded her for her pains.
Disappointed and dismayed, she crept into an unused closet in the hall, and crouching in the cobwebby corner, gave herself up to such intense cogitation that the tired young brain succumbed again to weariness, and she drooped forward upon the hard floor fast asleep.
Day was far advanced when she roused herself, with a start, and again realized her situation. She heard steps and voices, and knew that the small family was awake and astir. Presently the hall clock chimed the hour of noon.
"I have been very lazy," she said to herself, "and—oh, dear, I am very hungry!"
She remembered then that the nuns had not given her any supper, because she had flatly refused to beg Father Quentin's pardon for her wilfulness.
"Never mind," she said valiantly to herself, "I must not remember that I am tired and hungry until I find my friend."
But hot tears came into the dark eyes, all the same. It was not pleasant to be tired and hungry and disappointed, and even in hiding like a dreadful criminal fearing to be captured.
Suddenly the swish of a silken robe trailed through the hall met her ears—Mme. Lorraine!