‘Something has happened!’ he cried. ‘Madeline is ill? Where is she? For God’s sake tell me!’
Then he turned to the servant.
‘Speak, you! Are you dumb? Where is your mistress?’
The man was about to make some blundering reply, when Miss Forster interposed.
‘Madeline is not at home.’
‘Not at home!’ echoed Forster wildly.
‘Oh, James, keep calm! Perhaps she will soon come back; but she went out two hours ago on foot quite alone, and has not yet returned.’
Gone out? And at such an hour, and on such a night. The thing seemed utterly inconceivable, and Forster could not trust his ears. But the servant on being pressed gave so circumstantial an account of what had occurred, that doubt was no longer possible. He reserved his most important piece of information till the last.
‘And please, sir, I think she left a letter for you, sir; leastways she was writing one, and I see it lying afterwards on the study table.’
Without waiting to hear more, Forster rushed toward the study, while his sister still remained questioning the servant. A few minutes afterwards Miss Forster heard a cry and a fall, and on entering the study found Forster lying on the hearth, insensible, with Madeline’s letter open in his hand.