She quickly made her arrangements. For the second time in the course of but a few weeks, she wrote a note for Nina to find after she should have left—a note to some extent explaining what she was about.
“I think I have got a clue, dearest Nina,” she said. “But I must follow it up alone. Do not be the least uneasy about me. I shall probably be back in a few hours; if not, I will telegraph in the course of the day.”
This was about all that Nina had to show to her uncle, when at breakfast-time that morning she rushed downstairs with the tidings of Lettice’s disappearance. Mr Morison looked, and was, terribly put out. For the first time, his patience seemed about to desert him.
“It is really too bad,” he said. “What have I done or left undone that Lettice should meet me with so little confidence? It is all nonsense about her being the only person who could act, if indeed there is anything to act about. It is too bad!” And then, catching sight of the excessive distress in Nina’s gentle face, his kind heart smote him for adding to it.
“After all,” he said, more cheerfully than he felt, “I do not know that there is anything to be really uneasy about I quite expect her back by luncheon. We let her off too easily the last time, eh, Nina? Poor child! What a child she is, to do things in this silly, ill-considered way!”
They went in to breakfast, and Nina tried to follow her uncle’s example, and to believe that there was nothing to be seriously alarmed about. But neither Mr nor Mrs Morison eat anything, and seemed eager to leave the table, in order, no doubt, to discuss what steps to take.
“Dear me,” thought poor Nina, her eyes filling with tears, “what trouble, from first to last, we have caused them!”
Just as the mockery of a breakfast was over—Miss Branksome and the younger children had had theirs earlier—and the three were rising from the table, there came, as the evening before, a short, sharp, authoritative ring at the door-bell.
“That sounds like Auriol again,” said Mr Morison, smiling at his own fancifulness, “though of course it can’t be at this time of the morning.” But he was mistaken. It was Mr Auriol. In he hurried, not waiting for the footman to announce him, a bright, eager expression on his face, an opened envelope in his hand.
“Good news!” he cried. “I have a letter from Arthur, giving an address to which I may write, if I have good news for him. I could not rest till I told you of it, so I rushed up here at once. Will you give me a cup of tea, Mrs Morison? The letter was to be private unless I could guarantee all of you feeling—as I know you do about it, Lettice especially. It all hangs on her, but I know she will be only too ready. Where is she—not down yet?”