Patsy left the window, for he had found out all he could hope to learn.
It was clear to him that Mr. Ellison had taken the man’s coat and hat and left the house, his valet being in the scheme.
Mr. Ellison once out of the house safely, the man who had come to see him had taken his chances for escaping in a bolder and more dangerous manner.
He went back to Nick and reported what he had learned.
“There is no doubt that you have hit the very way in which it was done,” replied Nick. “Chick reports that the valet has made his disappearance as well. The question is now, why have these two men fled? There is a great mystery here somewhere.”
The assurance that the bridegroom had deliberately fled the house, within an hour after he had been married, and immediately after the wedding breakfast, at which he had made a speech expressing his happiness in securing so lovely a partner for life, by no means contributed to the peace of mind of the bride.
She fainted away on hearing it, and remained so long in a state of unconsciousness that the doctor was summoned to attend her.
In the meantime, the guests who crowded the house were wondering over the extraordinary delay.
Rumors were flying, the chief of which was that the bride had been taken violently ill. The nephew of Mr. Sanborn, a young man of the same name, and who alone of the family seemed to keep his head, took advantage of the rumor and of the fact of the calling of the physician to make it the excuse for dismissing the guests from the house.
It was not so easily done, but, in the course of an hour, all the strangers were gotten away, leaving only Nick and his assistants there.