ed or the room.
We examined every corner carefully, but made no other discoveries than
these.

When I returned to the servants' hall, bad news of my mistress was
awaiting me there. The unusual noise and confusion in the house had
reached her ears, and she had been told what had happened without
sufficient caution being exercised in preparing her to hear it. In her
weak, nervous state, the shock of the intelligence had quite prostrated
her. She had fallen into a swoon, and had been brought back to her
senses with the greatest difficulty. As to giving me or anybody else
directions what to do under the embarrassing circumstances which had
now occurred, she was totally incapable of the effort.

I waited till the middle of the day, in the hope that she might get
strong enough to give her orders; but no message came from her. At last
I resolved to send and ask her what she thought it best to do. Josephine
was the proper person to go on this errand; but when I asked for
Josephine, she was nowhere to be found. The housemaid, who had searched
for her ineffectually, brought word that her bonnet and shawl were
not hanging in their usual places. The parlor-maid, who had been in
attendance in my mistress's room, came down while we were all aghast at
this new disappearance. She could only tell us that Josephine had begged
her to do lady's-maid's duty that morning, as she was not well. Not
well! And the first result of her illness appeared to be that she had
left the house!

I cautioned the servants on no account to mention this circumstance
to my mistress, and then went upstairs myself to knock at her door. My
object was to ask if I might count on her approval if I wrote in
her name to the lawyer in London, and if I afterward went and gave
information of what had occurred to the nearest justice of the peace. I
might have sent to make this inquiry through one of the female servants;
but by this time, though not naturally suspicious, I had got to distrust
everybody in the house, whether they deserved it or not.

So I asked the question myself, standing outside the door. My mistress
thanked me in a faint voice, and begged me to do what I had proposed
immediately.

I went into my own bedroom and wrote to the lawyer, merely telling him
that Mr. James Smith had appeared unexpectedly at the Hall, and
that events had occurred in consequence which required his immediate
presence. I made the letter up like a parcel, and sent the coachman