He was sleeping soundly still, and his face looked wasted and ashen in the abstraction of slumber. Mademoiselle Marcelline glanced at him, shrugged her shoulders, sat down on a couch at the foot of the bed, where she was effectually screened from view by the heavy carved bedpost and the voluminous folds of the purple curtain, and waited. Meantime, Captain Bligh had not succeeded in finding Sir Charles, though he had sought for him in the shrubbery and in the stable-yard. He could not make out whither he had gone, and returned to the house to take counsel with Banks. That functionary suggested that Sir Charles might have gone up to the keeper's house; and though the Captain could not imagine why Sir Charles should have gone thither at such an inconvenient time, as he had no other to offer, he accepted this suggestion, and said he would go thither and look for him. "Shall I go with you, Captain?" asked Banks, who felt curious to discover what "Mitford was up to." Since Mr. Effingham's visit, and the polite fiction of the yacht--endeared to Mr. Banks by his own joke about the Fleet Prison, which he considered so good that society was injured by its suppression within his own bosom--the incredulous flunkey had experienced an increased share of the curiosity with which their masters' affairs invariably inspire servants. He was much pleased then that Captain Bligh answered, "Yes, yes, you can come with me." The keeper's cottage was not very far from the great house, from which, however, it was entirely hidden by a thick fir-plantation which covered a long and wide space of undulating land, and through which several narrow paths led to the open ground beyond. The Captain and his attendant struck into one of those paths, which led directly in the direction of the keeper's house. "We can't miss Sir Charles, I think, if he really has gone up to Hutton's," said the Captain. "No, sir, I think not, unless he has taken a very roundabout way," answered Banks. They walked quickly on for some distance, the Captain's impatience momentarily increasing, and also his doubts that Mitford had gone in this direction at all. At length they reached a point at which the path, cutting the plantation from east to west, was intersected by one running from north to south. Here they paused, and the Captain said testily, "By Jove, Banks, I hardly know what to do. The messenger from Fishbourne's shut up in the library all this time, and all the servants in a fuss, and Sir Charles not forthcoming! I wish I had broken the news of her father's death to Lady Mitford before I came out; it would have been by far the best plan. She's sure to hear it by accident now."