It occurred to me that her silence was all owing to a fit of bashfulness, caused by her having me locked up in the chamber with her.
"Pattie," said I, reaching out my hands, "but without being able to reach her, you shouldn't be bashful nor nothing, considering we're to be married in less than half an hour. I say, Pattie, what are we to do now? where are you?"
While I spoke I heard a carriage again rattle by the door, and, to my astonishment, the coachman saluted the house with three such cracks of his whip as my own had given a few minutes before.
"Pattie," said I, while a cold sweat broke over my limbs, "where are you, and why don't you speak?"
I felt about the door for her, but felt in vain; I listened for the sound of her breath, hoping she might have hidden herself out of sheer mischief, but not a breath was to be heard; I went feeling about the chamber, and with as little effect.
A horrible suspicion seized upon my fancy. There were two doors to the apartment, one opening upon the passage, the other into the boudoir; and both were locked as fast as doors could be. Where was the key my cousin Pattie turned when we entered the chamber together? It was gone. I discovered its absence, and looked round the chamber in astonishment and dismay.
At that moment some person in Mr. Periwinkle Smith's house, which was right opposite, entered a front chamber therein with a light, which streamed into the windows of Pattie's apartment with a lustre sufficient to make every object visible. My cousin Pattie was not to be seen! I looked under the bed, and into the bed; examined the presses, and peeped behind the chairs; but no cousin Pattie was to be found. She had locked me in the chamber, but not herself! Horror of horrors! she had played a trick upon me! she had jilted me! and—ay! there was no doubting it a moment longer—she had run off with my friend Tickle! "I'll show you how I serve fortune-hunters," said she—"lock him up in a closet—kick his heels till morning—eaten up by rats—shall hear yourself how I'll serve your rival Tickle." Death and destruction! and, after all, she has run away with him!—eloped in the very carriage I provided! married by the parson I engaged! decamped with the forty thousand I secured! and I—I, the unfortunate, jilted, cozened I—was the person left kicking my heels in a closet!
The idea filled me with phrensy; and the light from Mr. Periwinkle Smith's house being removed at the moment, I tumbled over a chair that lay in my way, and besides breaking my head and shin, woke up such a din in the house that the very servants in the kitchen bounced up in alarm, and screamed out for assistance.
"What's the matter, Pattie?" said my uncle Wilkins, turning the key which the faithless creature had left sticking in the outside of the door, and entering: "I say, Pattie, ods bobs, what's the—Lord bless us, cousin Ikey! is that you? what's the matter? what are you doing in Pattie's chamber?"
I answered my uncle Wilkins only by opening my mouth as wide as I could, and staring at him in anguish, horror, and despair.