Lucy would inevitably know of Laura’s absence. Just then Judith came in.
“Why, where’s Miss Laura?” she exclaimed, in surprise. “I was in her room a minute ago, and found this on the floor, miss. I came in to bring it to her.”
It was Laura’s purse; the one she ordinarily used. Jane supposed Laura had dropped it from her pocket. It was quite empty. Jane had seen her recently making a new one with green silk and steel beads; perhaps she had taken that into use.
“Is Miss Laura out?” asked Judith.
There was no denying it; there could be no smoothing the fact down, no plausible excuse offered for it; and Jane Chesney’s heart ached with its own pain.
“She—she may have stepped out to purchase something in the town that she was in a hurry for, some trifles for her worsted work,” breathed Jane, “She is sure not to be long. I’ll make the tea, Judith.”
The tea was made and partaken of, and still Laura did not appear. But when the time went on to ten, Jane grew terribly uneasy; not that a suspicion of the dreadful truth—all too dreadful as it would in every sense be to Jane—had yet penetrated to her brain.
She threw a shawl over her head, took an umbrella, and went to the garden-gate. There she stood looking up and down the road, as well as the darkness would permit—for the night had become very dark now. Nothing could be seen; nothing heard save the rain as it poured down.
Judith met her as she returned indoors, divining her uneasiness. “Can I go after her anywhere, Miss Jane?” She was Lady Jane now—but let that pass. Jane herself never so much as thought of it.
“You should, if I know where to send,” replied Jane. “I can only think that she has taken shelter somewhere, perhaps in a shop, waiting for the storm to abate. We do not know any one in South Wennock.”
There was nothing for it but to wait; nothing, nothing. And Jane Chesney did wait until it was hard upon eleven. An idea kept intruding itself into Jane’s mind—at first she rejected it as entirely improbable, but it gained ground, redoubling its force with every passing minute—that Laura had been so thoughtless and foolish as to take shelter in the house of Mr. Carlton.
Lucy began to cry; she got frightened: “Was Laura lost?” she asked. Judith came in with a grave face, and Pompey stood outside the kitchen door and stared in discomfort, the hall lamp lighting up the alarm in his eyes. Such a thing had never happened in all his service, and he was longing to ask whether his favourite Miss Laura could be lost—as Lucy had asked.
“Miss Jane,” said Judith, apart to her mistress, “I had better go somewhere, Perhaps—perhaps she may have been overtaken by the heaviest of the storm on her way home, and may have stepped into Mr. Carlton’s?”
Jane felt almost thankful for the words; they saved her the embarrassing pain of confessing to Judith that her own thoughts tended that way.
“I cannot think she would do so, Judith; but she is very thoughtless; and—Mr. Carlton’s house may have seemed like a welcome shelter from the rain. Perhaps—if you don’t mind going—"
Judith gave no time for the sentence to be finished. Another instant, and she reappeared in her bonnet and cloak, a large umbrella in her hand.
She went splashing down the Rise. To a quick walker, Mr. Carlton’s residence was not more than five minutes’ distance from Captain Chesney’s, for it was all down hill; but in the present sloppy and muddy state of the road, Judith could not get on so fast, and the church clocks were striking the quarter past eleven when she turned in at the gate.
She turned in and felt somewhat embarrassed, for the house appeared all dark and silent, as if its inmates had retired for the night. Even the coloured lamp was not burning. It certainly did not look as if the young lady were inside the house sheltering; and Judith felt all the awkwardness of ringing them up, with the question—was Miss Laura Chesney there?
She could only do that, however, or return home as she came; and she knocked at the house door. There was no answer; and presently she rang the night bell.
Neither was there any answer to that, and Judith rang again and again. At the third ring, a window was heard to open at the top of the house, and Judith stepped from her shelter beneath the portico and looked up.
“What’s the good of your keeping on ringing like that?” cried a woman’s remonstrating voice—which was, in fact, Hannah’s. “You might have told by seeing the perfessional lamp unlighted that Mr. Carlton was away from the town.”
“Is he away?” asked Judith.
“He went away sudden this evening. Leastways, it was sudden to us, for he didn’t tell us of it till he came down from his room with his hat on, and his portmanteau in his hand, and his carriage at the door to take him,” continued the voice, in rather an aggravated tone, as if the sudden departure had not altogether given