"What hour will yer master be at home?"
"Dunno. He was called away very sudden, on a journey; mistress knows."
"What?" cried Margaret, shrilly.
"He says the doctor was called away, on a sudden, too, and that he don't know where."
"Heaven help me, what does this mean?" said the poor girl, alighting and confronting the boy like a pale ghost risen out of its grave.
"When did he go—you surely know that?"
"I'll call mistress," said the boy, backing. "Come in, miss, and wait."
In a few moments the doctor's wife joined her, melancholy as usual.
"Oh, Mrs. Gay, it cannot be possible that the doctor has gone away without letting me know?"
"I do not know, my dear young lady, but it is quite certain that he went away somewhere without letting me know. I had precisely fifteen minutes to pack his valise in."