Where is she? But, where can she be?"

Adela rose.

"She pressed my hand just now," said Lady Gosstre.

"She was here when Captain Gambler quitted the room," Arabella remarked.

"Good heaven!"

The exclamation came from Adela.

"Oh, Lady Gosstre! I fear to tell you what I think she has done."

The scene of the rival Clubs was hurriedly related, together with the
preposterous pledge given by Emilia, that she would sing at the Ipley
Booth: "Among those dreadful men!"

"They will treat her respectfully," said Mr. Powys.

"Worship her, I should imagine, Merthyr," said Lady Gosstre. "For all
that, she had better be away. Beer is not a respectful spirit."

"I trust you will pardon her," Arabella pleaded. "Everything that
explanations of the impropriety of such a thing could do, we have done.
We thought that at last we had convinced her. She is quite untamed."

Mr. Powys now asked where this place was that she had hurried to.

The unhappy ladies of Brookfield, quick as they were to read every sign
surrounding them, were for the moment too completely thrown off their
balance by Emilia's extraordinary exhibition of will, to see that no
reflex of her shameful and hideous proceeding had really fallen upon
them. Their exclamations were increasing, until Adela, who had been the
noisiest, suddenly adopted Lady Gosstre's tone. "If she has gone, I
suppose she must be simply fetched away."

"Do you see what has happened?" Lady Charlotte murmured to Wilfrid,
between a phrase.

He stumbled over a little piece of gallantry.

"Excellent! But, say those things in French.--Your dark-eyed maid has
eloped. She left the room five minutes after Captain Gambier."

Wilfrid sprang to his feet, looking eagerly to the corners of the room.

"Pardon me," he said, and moved up to Lady Gosstre. On the way he
questioned himself why his heart should be beating at such a pace.
Standing at her ladyship's feet, he could scarcely speak.

"Yes, Wilfrid; go after her," said Adela, divining his object.

"By all means go," added Lady Gosstre. "Now she is there, you may as well
let her keep her promise; and then hurry her home. They will saddle you a
horse down below, if you care to have one."

Wilfrid thanked her ladyship, and declined the horse. He was soon walking
rapidly under a rough sky in the direction of Ipley, with no firm thought
that he would find Emilia there.

CHAPTER XI

At half-past nine of the clock on the evening of