I passed him at
his play, perhaps even unaware of his presence, but he recalled me to
that perception by crying aloud that he had just seen his mamma.
'When--where?' I asked convulsively.
'Up stairs in her bedroom,' was his instantaneous answer.
His manner was such as forbade me to suppose that he could be joking;
and, as it was barely possible (though, for reasons well known to me,
in the highest degree improbable) that Agnes might have returned by a
by-path, which, leading through a dangerous and disreputable suburb,
would not have coincided at any one point with the public road where I
had been keeping my station. I sprang forward into the house, up
stairs, and in rapid succession into every room where it was likely
that she might be found; but everywhere there was a dead silence,
disturbed only by myself, for, in my growing confusion of thought, I
believe that I rang the bell violently in every room I entered. No such
summons, however, was needed, for the servants, two of whom at the
least were most faithful creatures, and devotedly attached to their
young mistress, stood ready of themselves to come and make inquiries of
me as soon as they became aware of the alarming fact, that I had
returned without her.
Until this moment, though having some private reasons for surprise that
she should have failed to come into the house for a minute or two at
the hour prefixed, in order to make some promised domestic arrangements
for the day, they had taken it for granted that she must have met with
me at some distance from home--and that either the extreme beauty of
the day had beguiled her of all petty household recollections, or (as a
conjecture more in harmony with past experiences) that my impatience
and solicitations had persuaded her to lay aside her own plans for the
moment at the risk of some little domestic inconvenience.
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