Hesper and Miss Yolland were talking to two or three friends in the drawing-room; Lady Margaret was in her boudoir, and Mr.Mortimer smoking a cigar in his study.
Nowhere could Letty find Susan.

She was in the farmer's kitchen behind.
Tom suspected as much, but was far from hinting the possibility.

Letty found her cloak, which she had left in the hall, soaked with rain, and thought it prudent to go home at once, nor prosecute her search for Susan further.

She accepted, therefore, Tom's renewed offer of his company.
They were just leaving the hall, when a thought came to Letty: the moon suddenly appearing above the horizon had put it in her head.
"Oh," she cried, "I know quite a short way home!" and, without waiting any response from her companion, she turned, and led him in an opposite direction, round, namely, by the back of the court, into a field.

There she made for a huge oak, which gloomed in the moonlight by the sunk fence parting the grounds.