He awoke with a start. The small silver-toned bell on the mantelpiece had struck the hour of twelve. He looked around, and knew that the evil had come upon him, for Sheila had not returned, and all his most dreadful fears of that evening were confirmed. Sheila had gone away and left him. Whither had she gone?
Now there was no more indecision in his actions. He got his hat, plunged into the cold night air, and, finding a hansom, bade the man drive as hard as he could go down to Sloane street. There was a light in Ingram's windows, which were on the ground floor: he tapped with his stick on one of the panes—an old signal that had been in constant use when he and Ingram were close companions and friends. Ingram came to the door and opened it: the light of a lamp glared in on his face. "Hillo, Lavender!" he said in a tone of surprise.
The other could not speak, but he went into the house, and Ingram, shutting the door and following him, found that the man's face was deadly pale.
"Sheila—" he said, and stopped.
"Well, what about her?" said Ingram, keeping quite calm, but with wild fancies about some terrible accident almost stopping the pulsation of his heart.
"Sheila has gone away."
Ingram did not seem to understand.
"Sheila has gone away, Ingram," said Lavender in an excited way. "You don't know anything about it? You don't know where she has gone? What am I to do, Ingram? how am I to find her? Good God! don't you understand what I tell you? And now it is past midnight, and my poor girl may be wandering about the streets!"
He was walking up and down the room, paying almost no attention, in his excitement, to the small, sallow-faced man who stood quite quiet, a trifle afraid, perhaps, but with his heart full of a blaze of anger.
"She has gone away from your house?" he said slowly. "What made her do that?"