heed, and not thinking more about her. The next morning she was missing,
but when she had gone was as dark as where.

The discovery, later in the day, that certain effects, such as her
mother's dressing-case and a few personal necessities of daily use, were
gone too, seemed to dispose effectually of the theory of suicide; though
what remained, a lover, companion of her flight, being wanting? It was a
strange thing altogether, and the country was alive with wild theories
and wild reports. But in a few days a letter from Mr. Dundas to the
rector, and another to Edgar, set the question of self-destruction at
rest, though also they gave loose to other energies of conjecture, for
in both he said, "No harm has come to her, and I am content to let her
remain where she has elected to place herself."

As it was just this _where_ which tormented the folk with the sense of
mystery and made them eager for news, the father's meagre
explanation--which, in point of fact, was no explanation at all--was not
found very satisfactory, and a few hard words were said of Mr. Dundas,
his reserve to the world being taken for the same thing as indifference
to his daughter, and resented as an offence. But for the third time in
his life Sebastian was found capable of maintaining this impenetrable
reserve. Pepita's true status in her own country--madame's suspicious
debts and those damaging letters from London--Leam's hiding-place: he
had had strength enough to keep his own counsel about the first two
unbroken, and now he betrayed no more about this last. It may as well be
said that for this he had sufficient reason. Leam, who had confessed
her crime, and announced her intention of flight and of hiding herself
where no one should find her again, had not told him more than these
bare bones of the story. And he did not care to know more. The skeleton
was horrible enough as it stood: he was by no means inclined to clothe
it with the flesh of detail, still less to follow his erring child to
her place of exile. He was content that she should be blotted out. It
was the sole reparation that she could make.

This sudden disappearance ended the foreign tour which had been
Josephine's sweetest anticipations of the honeymoon, for Mr. Dundas
turned back for home at once, intending to put up Ford House for sale
and leave the place for ever. He was ashamed to live at North Aston, he
said, after Leam's extraordinary conduct, her shameful, shameless
_esclandre_,