But as she reached the door he said, half appealingly:--
"Whatever are your other intentions, Mrs. McClosky, as we are both
Susy's guests, I beg you will say nothing of this to her while we are
here, and particularly that you will not allow her to think for a moment
that I have discussed MY relations to her with anybody."
She flung herself out of the door without a reply; but on entering the
dark low-ceilinged drawing-room she was surprised to find that Susy was
not there. She was consequently obliged to return to the veranda, where
Clarence had withdrawn, and to somewhat ostentatiously demand of the
servants that Susy should be sent to her room at once. But the young
girl was not in her own room, and was apparently nowhere to be found.
Clarence, who had now fully determined as a last resource to make a
direct appeal to Susy herself, listened to this fruitless search with
some concern. She could not have gone out in the rain, which was again
falling. She might be hiding somewhere to avoid a recurrence of the
scene she had perhaps partly overheard. He turned into the corridor
that led to Mrs. Peyton's boudoir. As he knew that it was locked, he was
surprised to see by the dim light of the hanging lamp that a duplicate
key to the one in his desk was in the lock. It must be Susy's, and the
young girl had probably taken refuge there. He knocked gently. There was
a rustle in the room and the sound of a chair being moved, but no reply.
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