"Have you not her address?"
"No; neither have I heard from her in a long, long time. She lived in Plymouth years ago with her married daughter, but we never corresponded; and whether she is there now, or whether indeed she is living at all, I do not know. I caught at the hope as the drowning catch at straws."
Sir Everard looked at her in that thoughtful pause. How beautiful she was in her dark, glowing girlhood--how friendless, how desolate in the world.
"It would be the wildest of wild-goose chases, then," he said, "knowing as little of your nurse's whereabouts as you do, to seek her in Plymouth now. Write first, or advertise in the local journals. If she is still resident there, that will fetch her."
"Write! advertise!" Sybilla Silver repeated, with unspeakable mournfulness; "from whence, Sir Everard?"
"From here," answered the baronet, decidedly. "You shall not leave here until you find your friends. And you shall not wear this odious disguise an hour longer. Go back to your chamber and wait."
"What an egregious muff he is!" she said to herself, contemptuously. "There is no cleverness in fooling such an imbecile as that. I am going on velvet so far; I only hope my lady may be as easily dealt with as my lady's only son."
My lady's only son went straight to a door down the corridor, quite at the other extremity, and opened it.
It was a lady's dressing-room evidently. Laid out, all ready for wear, was a lady's morning toilet complete, and without more ado Sir Everard confiscated the whole concern. At the white cashmere robe alone he caviled.
"This is too gay; I must find a more sober garment. All the maid-servants in the house would recognize this immediately."
He went to one of the closets, searched there, and presently reappeared with a black silk dress. Rolling all up in a heap, he started at once with his prize, laughing inwardly at the figure he cut.
"If Lady Louise saw me now, or my lady mother, either, for that matter! What will Mildred and her maid say, I wonder, when they find burglars have been at work, and her matutinal toilet stolen?"
He bore the bundle straight to the chamber of his pretty runaway, and tapped at the door. It was discreetly opened an inch or two.
"Here are some clothes. When you are dressed, come out. I will wait in the passage."
"Thank yon," Miss Silver's soft voice said.
The young person whose adventures were so highly sensational doffed her velveteens and donned the dainty garments of Miss Mildred Kingsland.