"While Rosalind and I were eating our miserable melancholy dinner. Mr. Cartwright, I find, called after you went, and was shown, as usual, to her dressing-room; but he did not stay, Thomas says, above half an hour, for he both let him in and out. Soon after he went away, Fanny was sent for; and she and Curtis remained with her till a few minutes before dinner-time. Curtis then went into the kitchen, it seems, and ordered a tray to be taken for my mother and Fanny into the dressing-room, and the only message sent to Rosalind and me was, that mamma was not well, and begged not to be disturbed. Curtis must have seen the coachman and settled every thing with him very secretly; for not one of the servants, except the new stable-boy, knew that the carriage was ordered." "How are we to interpret this, Helen?--Such a night too!--as dark as pitch. Had I not known the way blindfold, I should never have got home. I left Sir Gilbert in a rage because I would not sleep there;--but my heart was heavy; I felt restless and anxious at the idea of remaining from you during the night: I think it was a presentiment of this dreadful news.--Oh! what a day has this been to me! So gay, so happy in the morning! so supremely wretched before night!--I can remember nothing that I said which could possibly have driven her to leave her home. What can it mean, Helen?" "Alas! Charles, I have no power to answer you. If asking questions could avail, might I not ask what I have done? And yet, at the moment of her leaving home for the night, she sent me word that I was _not to disturb her_!" "The roads too are so bad! Had she lamps, Helen?" "Oh yes. Some of the maids, while shutting up the rooms upstairs, saw the lights moving very rapidly towards the lodges." "It is an inexplicable and very painful mystery. But go to bed, my dearest Helen! you look most wretchedly ill and miserable." "Ill?--No, I am not ill, Charles, but miserable; yes, more miserable than I have ever felt since my poor father's death was first made known to me." The following morning brought no relief to the anxiety which this strange absence occasioned. Rosalind joined the brother and sister at breakfast, and her jaded looks more than confirmed Helen's report of the preceding night. Charles, however, hardly saw her sufficiently to know how she looked, for he carefully avoided her eyes; but if the gentlest and most soothing tone of voice, and the expression of her almost tender sympathy in the uneasiness he was enduring, could have consoled the young man for all he had suffered and was suffering, he would have been consoled. The day passed heavily; but Helen looked so very ill and so very unhappy, that Charles could not bear to leave her; and though a mutual feeling of embarrassment between himself and Rosalind made his remaining with them a very doubtful advantage, he never quitted them.