第27章 CHAPTER VII.(2)

"May God bless you,and him too,whoever he be!But if you want a friend,I may be that friend,may I not?and try to prove that my words of regard were true,in a better and higher sense than I used them at first."And kissing her passive hand,he was gone and she was left sitting alone.

But solitude was not what she could bear.She went quickly upstairs,and took a strong dose of sal-volatile,even while she heard Miss Monro calling to her.

"My dear,who was that gentleman that has been closeted with you in the drawing-room all this time?"And then,without listening to Ellinor's reply,she went on:

"Mrs.Jackson has been here"(it was at Mrs.Jackson's house that Mr.

Dunster lodged),"wanting to know if we could tell her where Mr.

Dunster was,for he never came home last night at all.And you were in the drawing-room with--who did you say he was?--that Mr.

Livingstone,who might have come at a better time to bid good-bye;and he had never dined here,had he?so I don't see any reason he had to come calling,and P.P.C.-ing,and your papa NOT up.So I said to Mrs.Jackson,'I'll send and ask Mr.Wilkins,if you like,but Idon't see any use in it,for I can tell you just as well as anybody,that Mr.Dunster is not in this house,wherever he may be.'Yet nothing would satisfy her but that some one must go and waken up your papa,and ask if he could tell where Mr.Dunster was.""And did papa?"inquired Ellinor,her dry throat huskily forming the inquiry that seemed to be expected from her.

"No!to be sure not.How should Mr.Wilkins know?As I said to Mrs.

Jackson,'Mr.Wilkins is not likely to know where Mr.Dunster spends his time when he is not in the office,for they do not move in the same rank of life,my good woman;and Mrs.Jackson apologised,but said that yesterday they had both been dining at Mr.Hodgson's together,she believed;and somehow she had got it into her head that Mr.Dunster might have missed his way in coming along Moor Lane,and might have slipped into the canal;so she just thought she would step up and ask Mr.Wilkins if they had left Mr.Hodgson's together,or if your papa had driven home.I asked her why she had not told me all these particulars before,for I could have asked your papa myself all about when he last saw Mr.Dunster;and I went up to ask him a second time,but he did not like it at all,for he was busy dressing,and Ihad to shout my questions through the door,and he could not always hear me at first.""What did he say?""Oh!he had walked part of the way with Mr.Dunster,and then cut across by the short path through the fields,as far as I could understand him through the door.He seemed very much annoyed to hear that Mr.Dunster had not been at home all night;but he said I was to tell Mrs.Jackson that he would go to the office as soon as he had had his breakfast,which he ordered to be sent up directly into his own room,and he had no doubt it would all turn out right,but that she had better go home at once.And,as I told her,she might find Mr.Dunster there by the time she got there.There,there is your Ipapa going out!He has not lost any time over his breakfast!"Ellinor had taken up the Hamley Examiner,a daily paper,which lay on the table,to hide her face in the first instance;but it served a second purpose,as she glanced languidly over the columns of the advertisements.

"Oh!here are Colonel Macdonald's orchideous plants to be sold.All the stock of hothouse and stove plants at Hartwell Priory.I must send James over to Hartwell to attend the sale.It is to last for three days.""But can he be spared for so long?""Oh,yes;he had better stay at the little inn there,to be on the spot.Three days,"and as she spoke,she ran out to the gardener,who was sweeping up the newly-mown grass in the front of the house.

She gave him hasty and unlimited directions,only seeming intent--if any one had been suspiciously watching her words and actions--to hurry him off to the distant village,where the auction was to take place.

When he was once gone she breathed more freely.Now,no one but the three cognisant of the terrible reason of the disturbance of the turf under the trees in a certain spot in the belt round the flower-garden,would be likely to go into the place.Miss Monro might wander round with a book in her hand;but she never noticed anything,and was short-sighted into the bargain.Three days of this moist,warm,growing weather,and the green grass would spring,just as if life--was what it had been twenty-four hours before.

When all this was done and said,it seemed as if Ellinor's strength and spirit sank down at once.Her voice became feeble,her aspect wan;and although she told Miss Monro that nothing was the matter,yet it was impossible for any one who loved her not to perceive that she was far from well.The kind governess placed her pupil on the sofa,covered her feet up warmly,darkened the room,and then stole out on tiptoe,fancying that Ellinor would sleep.Her eyes were,indeed,shut;but try as much as she would to be quiet,she was up in less than five minutes after Miss Monro had left the room,and walking up and down in all the restless agony of body that arises from an overstrained mind.But soon Miss Monro reappeared,bringing with her a dose of soothing medicine of her own concocting,for she was great in domestic quackery.What the medicine was Ellinor did not care to know;she drank it without any sign of her usual merry resistance to physic of Miss Monro's ordering;and as the latter took up a book,and showed a set purpose of remaining with her patient,Ellinor was compelled to lie still,and presently fell asleep.