Hodgson's together, she
believed; and somehow she had got it into her head that Mr. Dunster might
have missed his way in coming along Moor Lane, and might have slipped
into the canal; so she just thought she would step up and ask Mr. Wilkins
if they had left Mr. Hodgson's together, or if your papa had driven home.
I asked her why she had not told me all these particulars before, for I
could have asked your papa myself all about when he last saw Mr. Dunster;
and I went up to ask him a second time, but he did not like it at all,
for he was busy dressing, and I had to shout my questions through the
door, and he could not always hear me at first."
"What did he say?"
"Oh! he had walked part of the way with Mr. Dunster, and then cut across
by the short path through the fields, as far as I could understand him
through the door. He seemed very much annoyed to hear that Mr. Dunster
had not been at home all night; but he said I was to tell Mrs. Jackson
that he would go to the office as soon as he had had his breakfast, which
he ordered to be sent up directly into his own room, and he had no doubt
it would all turn out right, but that she had better go home at once.
And, as I told her, she might find Mr. Dunster there by the time she got
there. There, there is your I papa going out! He has not lost any time
over his breakfast!"
Ellinor had taken up the _Hamley Examiner_, a daily paper, which lay on
the table, to hide her face in the first instance; but it served a second
purpose, as she glanced languidly over the columns of the advertisements.
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