But Beauchamp felt by no means offended. The interest was too evidently genuine, the sympathy too womanly for the words to annoy. And then the speaker was Lady Hereward! Captain Chancellor thought over what she had said, and was all the better for it.
No one was to be seen in Eugenia’s sitting-room when he reached home on Saturday afternoon. “She must be out,” he thought; and the sound of Mrs Eyrecourt’s voice as he passed an open window confirmed his supposition. He was hastening out to join them by the door opening from his own “den” on to the sort of terrace below, when a letter, addressed to him in Eugenia’s handwriting, placed conspicuously on the mantelpiece, caught his eye. In another moment he had opened and read it. His bright complexion turned to a grey pallor; a look of wild distress replaced the expression of smiling indifference habitual to him; all the nerve and spring seemed to melt out of his bearing; for “she has gone out of her mind,” was the first thought that occurred to him—“grief has driven her insane,” as Lady Hereward’s words returned to his mind. “Good heavens! and this note is dated Thursday! What may not have happened by now?” Then his sister’s voice, gay and careless as usual, again reached his ear. “Gertrude must know it. What is she thinking of? What is the meaning of it all?”
A sort of giddiness came over him. He had to sit down for a moment to prevent himself falling. Then he went forward to the window from which steps led to the walk below, and called to Mrs Eyrecourt.
“Gertrude,” he said, “come here at once. I want you.”
Full of her own grievances, which the sight of her brother recalled freshly to her mind, Mrs Eyrecourt hardly relished the authoritative summons. She came up the steps slowly, calling to her dog, whose company she much preferred to that of her daughter.
“So you have come back at last, Beauchamp!” she said, as she drew near him. “I was very nearly setting off home this morning, I can tell you. I wonder what you asked me to come to see you for!”
Her pettishness was quite lost on her brother.
“Gertrude,” he said, excitedly, as if he had not heard her words, “do you not know, or do you know about Eugenia? What has happened?”
“What has happened?” she repeated, looking a little startled; “nothing that I know of, except that she has gone to her friends at Wareborough—her sister, or aunt, or somebody—for a day or two. I suppose she often goes there, does she not? though I certainly thought she might have waited till my visit was over.”
“Is that all you know?” said Beauchamp, impatiently. “Do you not know with what intention she left this—that she went, never to return?”