‘I am going out,’ she said, in reply to his amazed stare. ‘If your master returns——’
‘Beg pardon, ma’am,’ exclaimed the man, ‘but you can’t think of it. It’s pouring wet.’
‘I cannot help that. It is very important.’
Aghast at her persistence, the man opened the front door, and she saw the gleam of the gas in the wet street and on the falling shafts of rain. He was about to interfere once more, when she slipped by him, and disappeared in the darkness.
‘And without an umbrella, too!’ he afterwards explained to his fellow-servants. ‘She’s off her head, I think. I see the tears quite plain in her eyes as she sat writing in master’s room. There’s something wrong, I’m sure; but, after all, it’s no business ot mine.’
About half-past eleven o’clock Forster and his sister returned from the theatre. On entering the house, Forster at once hurried upstairs to Madeline’s boudoir, and found it empty, as well as the adjoining bedroom. Then he hastened downstairs, thinking to find his wife there.
At the foot of the stairs he found Miss Forster, in low conversation with one of the men-servants. Without noticing their agitated appearance and demeanour, he inquired if Mrs. Forster was in the drawing-room.
The servant did not reply, but Margaret Forster, very pale, placed her hand upon her brother’s arm.
‘Madeline is not there,’ she said, adding, with an emotion unusual to her, while her eyes filled with tears, ‘Oh, James! my poor brother.’
Forster stood terrified.