“Dreadful! Dreadful!” exclaimed Florence, clasping her hands and turning very pale.
“Ah, Florence! Florence!” said Mr. Fleetwood, “if you had only thrown the wings of your love around her, this would not have been!”
Florence covered her face with her hands, and for some moments wept bitterly.
“I have only wished to do right,” she said, at length, with forced composure. “More has been required of me than I had strength to perform. But speak now, Mr. Fleetwood: I am ready to move at your bidding.”
“Poor Agnes is almost beside herself. A little while ago she said, in her mother’s presence, ‘Oh, if Miss Harper were only here!’ And her mother said, in reply, ‘If she had not left us, this could not have happened.’ The way is plain for you, dear child! Come with me! Come!”
The old man’s voice was pleading and tremulous. His heart was overburdened.
“This moment,” replied Florence, as she turned and glided from the room. In less than a minute she re-entered the little parlor, with bonnet and shawl, ready to accompany Mr. Fleetwood. She had no cause to complain of her reception at Mrs. Dainty’s. Agnes, the moment she entered, sprung forward to meet her, and, laying her face against her bosom, sobbed violently. Mrs. Dainty arose with a slight assumption of dignity, but gave her hand with far more warmth of manner than Mr. Fleetwood had hoped for.
“I am glad to see you, Miss Harper,” she said,— “glad for the sake of Agnes. Oh, we are in dreadful trouble! Poor Madeline! Uncle John has told you all. Oh, my child! my child! Where can she be? It will kill me!”
And Mrs. Dainty fell into a fit of hysterical sobbing.
“Have you no further intelligence of Madeline?” Mr. Fleetwood inquired of Mr. Dainty.