“It is elsewhere that Nancy is gone,” remarked Madame Carimon. “Flore must have misunderstood her.”
Concluding that to be the case, and that Nancy might already be at home, Lavinia returned at once to the Petite Maison Rouge, Mary Carimon bearing her company in the sweet summer twilight. Lavinia opened the door with her latch-key. Flore had departed long before. There were three latch-keys to the house, Nancy possessing one of them.
They looked into every room, and called out “Nancy! Nancy!” But she was not there.
Nancy Preen had gone off with Captain Fennel by the six-o’clock train, en route for Dover, there to be converted into Mrs. Fennel.
And had Nancy foreseen the terrible events and final crime which this most disastrous step would bring about, she might have chosen, rather than take it, to run away to the Protestant cemetery outside the gates of Sainteville, there to lay herself down to die.
IV.
“Where can Nancy be?”
Miss Preen spoke these words to Mary Carimon in a sort of flurry. After letting themselves into the house, the Petite Maison Rouge, and calling up and down it in vain for Nancy, the question as to where she could be naturally arose.
“She must be spending the evening with the friends she stayed to dine with,” said Madame Carimon.