About midnight, a horseman, whom Mrs Maple had sent with enquiries to Brighthelmstone, returned, and informed her, that he could there gather no tidings; but that he had met with a friend of his own, who had told him that he had seen Miss Joddrel, in Mrs Maple's carriage, upon the Portsmouth road.
Mrs Maple, now, seeing all chance of her return, for the night, at an end, said, that if her niece had freaks of this inconsiderate and indecorous sort, she would not have the family disordered, by waiting for her any longer; and, wishing the two gentlemen good night, gave directions that all the servants should go to bed.
The next morning, during breakfast, the groom returned with the empty carriage. Miss Joddrel, he said, had made him drive her and Mrs Golding to an inn, about ten miles from Lewes, where she suddenly told him that she should pass the night; and bid him be ready for returning at eight o'clock the next morning. He obeyed her orders; but, the next morning, heard, that she had gone on, over night, in a hired chaise, towards Portsmouth; charging no one to let him know it. This was all the account that he was able to give; except that, when he had asked whether his mistress would not be angry at his staying out all night, Miss Joddrel had answered, 'O, Ellis will let her know that she must not expect me back.'
Selina, who related this, was told to fetch Ellis instantly.
Ellis descended with the severest pain, from the cruel want of reflection in Elinor, which exposed her to an examination that, though she felt herself bound to evade, it must seem inexcuseable not to satisfy.
Mrs Maple and the two gentlemen were at the breakfast-table. Harleigh would not even try to command himself to sit still, when he found that Ellis was forced to stand: and even Ireton, though he did not move, kept not his place from any intentional disrespect; for he would have thought himself completely old-fashioned, had he put himself out of his way, though for a person of the highest distinction.
'How comes it, Mistress Ellis,' said Mrs Maple, 'that you had a message for me last night, from my niece, and that you never delivered it?'
Ellis, confounded, tried vainly to offer some apology.
Mrs Maple rose still more peremptorily in her demands, mingling the haughtiest menaces with the most imperious interrogations; attacking her as an accomplice in the clandestine scheme of Elinor; and accusing her of favouring disobedience and disorder, for some sinister purposes of her own.