They, went into the empty room to investigate. The jewels were gone, every one she had worn; there were the empty cases. But the light gauze dress was there hanging in the wardrobe, as if her maid had carefully put it away. What she had put on to replace it was the next point which Mr. Simpson insisted on clearing up. All the elegant dresses of the young bride's trousseau were tossed out of drawers and wardrobes by Susette—Susette had been engaged for her by Clide himself after their marriage—and counted over, till one was found missing in the roll: the claret-colored silk in which she had travelled down from London, and had never worn since. It was the most appropriate dress of all she had for a midnight flight, and, being dark, would escape observation. Mr. Simpson seized immediately on this, “making a point” of it in his legal way, that so exasperated Clide he could have flown at the lawyer's throat and strangled him on the spot. He resisted the impulse, and turned away, inviting Mrs. de Winton by a sign to go with him. He walked into his own dressing-room, and, when his step-mother had followed him, he closed the door, and took [pg 747] a turn in the room with a quick, passionate step.
“What in the name of heaven can it be?” he said, stopping abruptly and coming close up to her, as she stood by the mantel-piece.
“She is gone,” answered his step-mother. “I hardly doubted it for an instant. I have been expecting some such catastrophe for several days past. If you ask me why, I cannot tell you. I somehow never trusted.... My dear Clide,” she continued in an earnest tone of kindness, quite unlike her usual cold manner to him, “I wish with all my heart I could do something or say something to comfort you or help you. Can you throw no light at all on it from your own knowledge of things? Is there nothing in what you know, or in what you do not know, about her antecedents and connections to help you to form some guess? Where can she have gone to, and who has she gone with?”
Clide clenched his hand, and moved away with an expression of anguish that was dreadful.
“Gone to!” he repeated suddenly. “Why, what fools we are not to have seen to that at once! But it's not too late....” He pulled out his watch.... “It's just three-quarters of an hour since we missed her. Sir Simon and I will saddle a couple of horses and ride both ways, for Glanivold and Lanfarl. If she is making for either, we may overtake her.”
He was going to the door, but Mrs. de Winton laid her hand on his arm. “Not three-quarters of an hour since we missed her, but she may be gone more than three hours. It was scarcely eight o'clock when she came up-stairs to lie down, and now it's ten minutes past twelve. Supposing she's gone to the station....”
“Nonsense!” broke in Clide; “the station is three hours' walk from this. She could no more do it than an infant.”
“I'm only supposing; one must suppose something,” replied his step-mother patiently. “The train leaves at a quarter to twelve; so if that were her object, it is too late to stop her.”
“There's something too absurd in the idea! It's simply impossible!” declared Clide with a vehemence that carried no sense of conviction with it—rather the contrary. “It's absurd to contemplate it,” he repeated; “but if you would sleep easier for having the thing certified, I'll jump into the saddle, and ride to the station and inquire.”
“Inquire what? Consider what you are going to do, Clide,” said Mrs. de Winton, holding him back firmly—“raise a hue and cry after your wife as if she were a runaway thief! Suppose it turns out after all to be a trick, and that we see her emerge out of some closet or corner before you come back; how will you look after sending it over the country that your wife disappeared one night? Do you imagine the world will believe the story of the game of hide-and-seek?”