Six days of Meynell's speech were over. On the seventh the Court opened amid the buzz of excitement and alarm. The chief defendant in the suit was not present, and had sent--so counsel whispered to each other--a hurried note to the judge to the effect that he should be absent through the whole remainder of the trial owing to "urgent private business." In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had left England, and men on both sides looked at each other in dismay. Meanwhile Mary had forwarded to her mother a note written late at night, in anguish of soul: "Alice wires to me to-night that Hester has disappeared--without the smallest trace. But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paris to-night--Oh, my own, pray that I may find her!--R. M." CHAPTER XXII The mildness of the winter had passed away. A bleak February afternoon lay heavy on Long Whindale. A strong and bitter wind from the north blew down the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough as yet to whiten the heights, but prophesying a wild night and a heavy fall. The blasts in the desolate upper reach of the dale were so fierce that a shepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcely hold himself upright against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all the upper and the lower air. From the high ridges came deep reverberating notes, a roaring in the wind; while the trees along the stream sent forth a shriller voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the eddying gusts. Cold gray clouds were beating from the north, hanging now over the cliffs on the western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes of the northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky black, the sharp edges of the rocks cut into the gloomy sky; while on the floor of the valley, blanched grass and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before the persecuting wind. A trap--Westmoreland calls it a car--a kind of box on wheels, was approaching the head of the dale from the direction of Whinborough. It stopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading to Burwood, and a young lady got out. "You're sure that's Burwood?" she said, pointing to the house partially visible at the end of the lane. The driver answered in the affirmative. "Where Mrs. Elsmere lives?" "Aye, for sure." The man as he spoke looked curiously at the lady he had brought from Whinborough station. She was quite a young girl he guessed, and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something queer about her. She looked so tumbled and tired. Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him with an uncertain hand, one or more of the shillings falling on the road, where the driver and she groped for them. Then she raised the small bag she had brought with her in the car, and turned away.