Not long afterwards, Selina came eagerly to relate, that the dinner-bell having been rung, and the family being assembled, and the butler having repeatedly tapt at the door of sister Elinor, to hurry her; Mrs Maple, not alarmed, because accustomed to her inexactitude, had made every body dine: after which, Tomlinson was sent to ask whether sister Elinor chose to come down to the dessert; but he brought word that he could not make either her or Mrs Golding speak. Selina was then desired to enquire the reason of such strange taciturnity; but could not obtain any answer.
Mrs Maple, saying that there was no end to her vagaries, then returned to the drawing-room; concluding, from former similar instances, that, dark, late, and cold as it was, Elinor had walked out with her maid, at the very hour of dinner. But Mr Harleigh, who looked extremely uneasy, requested Selina to see if her sister were not with Miss Ellis.
To this Ellis, by being found alone, was spared any reply; and Selina skipt down stairs to coffee.
How to avoid, or how to sustain the examination which she expected to ensue, occupied the disturbed mind of Ellis, till Selina, in about two hours, returned, exclaiming, 'Sister Elinor grows odder and odder! do you know she is gone out in the chariot? She ordered it herself, without saying a word to aunt, and got in, with Golding, close to the stables! Tomlinson has just owned it to Mr Harleigh, who was grown quite frightened at her not coming home, now it's so pitch dark. Tomlinson says she went into the hall herself, and made him contrive it all. But we are no wiser still as to where she is gone.'
The distress of Ellis what course to take, increased every moment as it grew later, and as the family became more seriously alarmed. Her consciousness that there was no chance of the return of Elinor, made her feel as if culpable in not putting an end to fruitless expectation; yet how produce a letter of which every word demanded secresy, when all avowal would be useless, since Elinor could not be forced back?
No one ascended again to her chamber till ten o'clock at night: the confusion in the house was then redoubled, and a footman came hastily up stairs to summon her to Mrs Maple.