“I don’t know that they will miss us so quickly,” she said. “It will take them some time to go all over the front of the house, and if they don’t find us in the grounds they are sure just to think we have walked on. I am sure Mrs Greville will think so, any way; she always takes things so comfortably,” she added, with an uneasy reflection that Mrs Greville would probably be rejoicing at the success of her amiable scheme for throwing herself and “young Morpeth” together. “I wish I had not left the others.”
Mr Morpeth smiled.
“I really think you are wasting a great deal of unnecessary energy on our misadventure,” he said. “I don’t see anything so very desperate about it. If we were in a box now, like that girl at Modena, Guinevere—no, Genevieve—no, bless me, I can’t remember. You know whom I mean—we might be rather uneasy. But at the very worst we cannot be left here more than an hour or two. I dare say the housekeeper will be coming back to look for us immediately, for she will know how awkward these doors are.”
“Yes,” said Mary, “I do think that is not unlikely. She did not hear us speak of going back to the gardens though, did she? she had gone on in front.”
“But she is pretty sure to miss us, and ask what had become of us—she’s not a stupid old lady by any means. Just let’s wait here comfortably a few minutes, and see if she doesn’t come.”
Mary tried to take his advice, but as the minutes passed she grew more and more uncomfortable.
“I say,” exclaimed Mr Morpeth, “supposing we try to make ourselves heard somehow. I never thought of that. Very likely there are offices—pantries, or kitchens, and so on under these rooms. There’s no bell, but supposing we jump on the floor and scream—I’ll jump, if you will be so good as to scream—some one will be sure to hear us and rush up to see what’s happening in the haunted room.”
But at this proposal Mary grew literally white with anxiety.
“Oh, please don’t, Mr Morpeth,” she said, so beseechingly that the young man looked at her with more concern than he had yet shown.
“What a queer girl she must be to take it to heart so!” he said to himself.