The hours, however slowly, wore away, and his patience was almost exhausted: soon after ten o'clock he ventured to send to his father, to know whether he was ready to return to town? but he received a message in reply, 'that he had determined to stay all night where he was.' Vexed and angry, Delamere began to suspect that his father had some design in thus detaining him at a distance from Emmeline; and fired by indignation at this idea, equally scorning to submit to restraint or to be detained by finesse, he disengaged himself from the card table, fetched his hat, and without speaking to any body, walked to the next village, where he got into a post-chaise and was presently in London; but as it was almost twelve o'clock, he forbore to visit Emmeline that night. CHAPTER XVI As soon as there was any probability of Emmeline's being visible the next morning, Delamere was at Clapham. The servant of whom he enquired for her, told him, that Miss Mowbray had not yet rung her bell, and that as it was later than her usual hour, she was afraid it was owing to her being ill. Alarmed at this intelligence, Delamere eagerly questioned her further; and learned that the preceding morning, a gentleman who had never been there before, had been to see Miss Mowbray, and had staid with her about three quarters of an hour, during which he had talked very loud; and that after he was gone, she had hastened to her own room, crying sadly, and had seemed very much vexed the whole day afterwards. That when she went to bed, which was early in the evening, she had sighed bitterly, and said she was not well. The servants, won by the sweetness and humanity with which Emmeline treated them, all seemed to consider her health and happiness as their own concern; and the girl who delivered this intelligence to Delamere, had been very much about her, and knowing her better, loved her more than the others. Delamere could not doubt the truth of this account; yet he could not conjecture who the stranger could be, in whose power it was thus to distress Emmeline. But dreading lest some scheme was in agitation to take her from him, he sat in insupportable anxiety 'till she should summons the maid.