“No, sir.”

“Is she in the habit of staying away at night?”

“No, sir.”

“Where did she go early in the evening?”

“I do not know, sir.”

Disappointed, and doubly alarmed, Mr. Lester turned away, and retraced his steps homeward.

“Did you see her?” eagerly inquired his wife, as he entered.

“She is not at home.”

“Where is she?”

“The stupid servant could not or would not tell.”

“Indeed, indeed, I do not like the appearance of all this,” said Mrs. Lester, with a troubled countenance.

“Nor do I. I am sadly afraid all is not right in regard to Mary.”

“But she certainly could not be induced to go away with any one—­in a word, to marry clandestinely.”

“I should hope not.  But one so innocent and unsuspecting as Mary—­one with so much natural goodness of character—­is most easily led away by the specious and designing, who can easily obscure their minds, and take from them their own freedom of action.  For this reason, we should have guarded her much more carefully than we have done.”

For two hours longer did the anxious parents wait and watch for Mary’s return, but in vain.  They then retired to take a brief but troubled repose.

Early on the next morning, in going into Mary’s room, her mother found a letter for her, partly concealed among the leaves of a favourite volume that lay upon her table.  It contained the information that she was about to marry Mr. Fenwick, and gave Mrs. Martindale as authority for the excellence of his character:  The letter was written on the previous day, and the marriage was to take place that night.

With a stifled cry of anguish, Mrs. Lester sprang down the stairs, on comprehending the tenor of the letter, and, placing it in the hands of her husband, burst into tears.  He read it through without visible emotion; but the intelligence fell like a dead, oppressive weight upon his heart—­almost checking respiration.  Slowly he seated himself upon a chair, while his head sank upon his bosom, and thus he remained almost motionless for nearly half an hour, while his wife wept and sobbed by his side.

“Mary,” he at last said, in a mournful tone—­“she is our child yet.”

“Wretched—­wretched girl!” responded Mrs. Lester; “how could she so fatally deceive herself and us?”

“Fatally, indeed, has she done so!  But upon her own head will the deepest sorrow rest.  I only wish that we were altogether guiltless of this sacrifice.”

“But may it not turn out that this Mr. Fenwick will not prove so unworthy of her as we fear?—­that he will do all in his power to make her happy?”

“Altogether a vain hope, Mary.  He is evidently not a man of principle, for no man of principle would have thus clandestinely stolen away our child—­which he could only have done by first perverting or blinding her natural perceptions of right.  Can such an one make any pure-minded, unselfish woman happy?  No!—­the hope is altogether vain.  He must have been conscious of his unworthiness, or he would have come forward like a man and asked for her.”