To my
surprise, however, little more than five minutes had elapsed
before Miss Halcombe returned.
"Does Anne Catherick refuse to see you?" I asked in astonishment.
"Anne Catherick is gone," replied Miss Halcombe.
"Gone?"
"Gone with Mrs. Clements. They both left the farm at eight
o'clock this morning."
I could say nothing--I could only feel that our last chance of
discovery had gone with them.
"All that Mrs. Todd knows about her guests, I know," Miss Halcombe
went on, "and it leaves me, as it leaves her, in the dark. They
both came back safe last night, after they left you, and they
passed the first part of the evening with Mr. Todd's family as
usual. Just before supper-time, however, Anne Catherick startled
them all by being suddenly seized with faintness. She had had a
similar attack, of a less alarming kind, on the day she arrived at
the farm; and Mrs. Todd had connected it, on that occasion, with
something she was reading at the time in our local newspaper,
which lay on the farm table, and which she had taken up only a
minute or two before."
"Does Mrs. Todd know what particular passage in the newspaper
affected her in that way?" I inquired.
"No," replied Miss Halcombe.
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