"What hour will yer master be at home?" "Dunno. He was called away very sudden, on a journey; mistress knows." "What?" cried Margaret, shrilly. "He says the doctor was called away, on a sudden, too, and that he don't know where." "Heaven help me, what does this mean?" said the poor girl, alighting and confronting the boy like a pale ghost risen out of its grave. "When did he go--you surely know that?" "I'll call mistress," said the boy, backing. "Come in, miss, and wait." In a few moments the doctor's wife joined her, melancholy as usual. "Oh, Mrs. Gay, it cannot be possible that the doctor has gone away without letting me know?" "I do not know, my dear young lady, but it is quite certain that he went away somewhere without letting me know. I had precisely fifteen minutes to pack his valise in." "Don't you know where he has gone?" asked Margaret, the gloom of death descending upon her heart. "Not exactly; he vouchsafed to mutter 'Wales,' as he ran down the steps, without even a farewell to his boy, far less to his wife, and for what, or what he can mean by it is a mystery to me." "Did he leave no message for me?" "I believe he did. I do seem to recall that he said you were to go to Mr. Davenport for explanations. Yes, that was the message." "Good heaven! And Mr. Davenport left word that I was to come to your husband for explanations! They must have gone away together! And I am left alone to fight for my life and to stem the tide of fraud!" moaned poor Margaret, bursting into tears; "and oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" CHAPTER XXI. WAS IT A RUSE? The tide of horror was mounting higher, the waters gurgled to her lips, and her own feeble hands must raise a footway from out of the hissing waves to bear her safely over. "Where now, miss?" asked Symonds, holding the coach door in his hand. "Drive to the office of Seamore Emersham, the lawyer," said Margaret. The coachman mounted to the box, turned the carriage, and rolled down the street again. "Can it be doubted that my guardians have been purposely sent out of the way, that I may not appeal to them for protection?" she thought. "No, I am not deceived; Mortlake is too talented a plotter to leave a door of safety open for his victim. With what plausible excuse can he have duped the suspicious Davenport, and the humane Gay, that they have both left me in his power? No doubt he expected to keep me a prisoner in the castle until I had either capitulated or fallen a victim to his rage. But I have escaped him, and am free to seek protection where I please, and since my friends have allowed themselves to be cheated by the villain, I shall lay my case before this other lawyer, Mr. Emersham. I have only to disclose the outrage attempted last night, and my enemy shall be arrested. Oh! you arch fiend! you did not expect this chapter in the story, did you? No, you wretch, you do not know that Margaret Walsingham is posting to sure victory, and your certain destruction!"