As soon as Mervyn was ushered into her presence, she suspected him to be the person to whom Welbeck had alluded, and this suspicion his conversation had confirmed.

She was at a loss to comprehend the reasons of the silence which he so pertinaciously maintained.
Her uneasiness, however, prompted her to renew her solicitations.

On the day subsequent to the catastrophe related by Mervyn, she sent a messenger to Welbeck, with a request to see him.

Gabriel, the black servant, informed the messenger that his master had gone into the country for a week.

At the end of the week, a messenger was again despatched with the same errand.