But they could not find Lord Hartledon.

They searched, and shouted, and waved their lanterns: all in vain.

Very much perplexed indeed did Val Elster look when he got back again.
"Where in the world can he have gone to ?" angrily questioned the countess-dowager; and she glared from her seat at the head of the table on the offender Val, as she asked it.

"I must say all this is most unseemly, and Hartledon ought to be brought to his senses for causing it.
I suppose he has taken himself off to a surgeon's." It was possible, but unlikely, as none knew better than Val Elster.

To get to the surgeon's he would have to pass his own house, and would be more likely to go in, and send for Mr.Hillary, than walk on with a disabled foot.