Aghast at her persistence, the man opened the front door, and she saw the gleam of the gas in the wet street and on the falling shafts of rain. He was about to interfere once more, when she slipped by him, and disappeared in the darkness. ‘And without an umbrella, too!’ he afterwards explained to his fellow-servants. ‘She’s off her head, I think. I see the tears quite plain in her eyes as she sat writing in master’s room. There’s something wrong, I’m sure; but, after all, it’s no business ot mine.’ About half-past eleven o’clock Forster and his sister returned from the theatre. On entering the house, Forster at once hurried upstairs to Madeline’s boudoir, and found it empty, as well as the adjoining bedroom. Then he hastened downstairs, thinking to find his wife there. At the foot of the stairs he found Miss Forster, in low conversation with one of the men-servants. Without noticing their agitated appearance and demeanour, he inquired if Mrs. Forster was in the drawing-room. The servant did not reply, but Margaret Forster, very pale, placed her hand upon her brother’s arm. ‘Madeline is not there,’ she said, adding, with an emotion unusual to her, while her eyes filled with tears, ‘Oh, James! my poor brother.’ Forster stood terrified. ‘Something has happened!’ he cried. ‘Madeline is ill? Where is she? For God’s sake tell me!’ Then he turned to the servant. ‘Speak, you! Are you dumb? Where is your mistress?’ The man was about to make some blundering reply, when Miss Forster interposed. ‘Madeline is not at home.’ ‘Not at home!’ echoed Forster wildly. ‘Oh, James, keep calm! Perhaps she will soon come back; but she went out two hours ago on foot quite alone, and has not yet returned.’ Gone out? And at such an hour, and on such a night. The thing seemed utterly inconceivable, and Forster could not trust his ears. But the servant on being pressed gave so circumstantial an account of what had occurred, that doubt was no longer possible. He reserved his most important piece of information till the last. ‘And please, sir, I think she left a letter for you, sir; leastways she was writing one, and I see it lying afterwards on the study table.’ Without waiting to hear more, Forster rushed toward the study, while his sister still remained questioning the servant. A few minutes afterwards Miss Forster heard a cry and a fall, and on entering the study found Forster lying on the hearth, insensible, with Madeline’s letter open in his hand. CHAPTER XXXVII.--THE SEARCH.