CHAPTER XI.
"Yet he beholds her with the eyes of mind-- He sees the form which he no more shall meet; She like a passionate thought is come and gone, While at his feet the bright rill bubbles on." ELLIOTT _of Sheffield_.
IT was a little more than three weeks after that fearful night, when the chaise of Maltravers stopped at the cottage door--the windows were shut up; no one answered the repeated summons of the post-boy.

Maltravers himself, alarmed and amazed, descended from the vehicle: he was in deep mourning.

He went impatiently to the back entrance; that also was locked; round to the French windows of the drawing-room, always hitherto half-opened, even in the frosty days of winter,--they were now closed like the rest.

He shouted in terror, "Alice, Alice!"-- no sweet voice answered in breathless joy, no fairy step bounded forward in welcome.
At this moment, however, appeared the form of the gardener coming across the lawn.

The tale was soon told; the house had been robbed--the old woman at morning found gagged and fastened to her bed-post--Alice flown.
A magistrate had been applied to,--suspicion fell upon the fugitive.
None knew anything of her origin or name, not even the old woman.
Maltravers had naturally and sedulously ordained Alice to preserve that secret, and she was too much in fear of being detected and claimed by her father not to obey the injunction with scrupulous caution.