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Page 49
"All in good time," remarked Mrs. Elmsley. "I dare say,
Ronayne is engaged in some duty which has prevented him
from keeping his engagement as punctually as he could
have desired. We shall certainly see him before the
breakfast things are removed."
"It seems to me," said her husband, who was taking his
meal with the appetite of any other than a hungry man,
and even with a shade of vexation on his features, "that
you all appear to be very much in the dark here. Why,
Margaret, have you not heard what has occurred during
the night, as well as this morning?"
"How should I have heard any thing, George?" replied Mrs.
Elmsley. "I have seen no one since you went out this
morning--who could have communicated news from without?
Surely you ought to know that. Will you have more coffee?"
"No, thank you--I have no appetite for coffee or for any
thing else. I almost wish I had not come. Dear Maria,"
he added, impetuously, taking Miss Heywood's hand in his
own; "I know you have a noble--a courageous heart, and
can bear philosophically what I have to tell you."
"I can bear much," was the reply, accompanied by a forced
smile, that was contradicted by the quivering of the
compressed lip; "and if I could not, I find I must begin
to learn. Yet what can you have to tell me, my dear Mr.
Elmsley, more than I already divine--my poor father--"
and the tears started from her eyes.
"Ha! there at least, I have comfort for you--although
there has been sad work at the farm--the fishing-party
have come in with the bodies of poor Le Noir and the boy
Wilton, but they all say that Mr. Heywood was carried
off a prisoner by the Indians."
"Carried off a prisoner," repeated Miss Heywood, a sudden
glow animating her pale features--"oh! Elmsley, thank you
for that. There is still a hope then?"
"There is indeed a hope; but, dearest Miss Heywood, why
must I heal with one hand and wound with the other. If
I give comparative good news of your father, there is
another who ought to be here, and whose absence at this
moment is to me at once a pain and a mystery."
"You mean Harry Ronayne?" she said, hesitatingly, but
without manifesting surprise.
"Where the foolish fellow has gone," he continued, "I do
not know, but he has disappeared from the Fort, nor has
he left the slightest clue by which he may be traced."
"Does Captain Headley know this?" she inquired,
recollecting, that part of the conversation that had
passed between them the preceding day, in reference to
the succor that might have been afforded at the farm.
"He does. I made the report of Ronayne's absence to him
personally, and the doctor was summoned to state if he
had seen any thing of him. He, however, was as ignorant
as a man, who had been drunk during the night, and was
not yet quite sober in the morning, could well be. The
captain was as much surprised as displeased, but further
inquiry was delayed on the sergeant of the guard coming
up and announcing the near approach of the boat containing
the fishing-party."
"Tell me, dear Mr. Elmsley," said Miss Heywood, after a
few moments of seeming reflection; "what is your own
opinion of the matter? How do you account--or have you
at all endeavored to account for Ronayne's absence?"
"I can easily understand the cause," he replied, "but
confound me if I can attempt to divine the means he took
to accomplish his object."
He then proceeded to relate the circumstances of his
proposal to Captain Headley--the abrupt refusal he had
met with--his subsequent application to himself to pass
him out of the gate, and the final abandonment of his
request when he found that his acquiescence would seriously
compromise him, as officer of the guard.
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