He rose early the next morning, and impatiently looked for the hour which he had appointed for his visit. He wished that he had fixed on an earlier one, took up a book to beguile the minutes, threw it down again, looked a hundred times at his watch, ordered his carriage to the door two hours before it was wanted, feared to go too soon, lest Laura should refuse to see him, and yet was at her lodgings, long before his appointment. He inquired for her, and was answered that she had discharged her lodgings, and was gone. 'Gone! Whither?'--Fanny did not know; Miss Montreville had been busy all the evening before in preparing for her removal, and had left the house early that morning. 'And did she leave no address where she might be found?' 'I heard her tell the coachman,' said Fanny, 'to stop at the end of Grosvenor-street, and she would direct him where she chose to be set down. But I believe she has left a letter for you, Sir.' 'Fool!' cried Hargrave, 'why did you not tell me so sooner--give it me instantly.'
He impatiently followed the girl to the parlour which had been Montreville's. The letter lay on the table. He snatched it, and hastily tore it open. It contained only his bill, returned with Miss Montreville's compliments and thanks. He twisted the card into atoms, and cursed with all his soul the ingratitude and cold prudence of the writer. He swore that if she were on earth, he would find her; and vowed that he would make her repent of the vexation which he said she had always taken a savage delight in heaping upon him.
Restless, and yet unwilling to be gone, he next wandered into Laura's painting-room, as if hoping in her once-favourite haunt to find traces of her flight. He had never entered it since the day when the discovery of De Courcy's portrait had roused his sudden frenzy. Association brought back the same train of thought. He imagined that Laura, while she concealed herself from him, had taken refuge with the De Courcys; and all his jealousy returned. After, according to custom, acting the madman for a while, he began as usual to recover his senses. He knew he could easily discover whether Miss Montreville was at Norwood, by writing to a friend who lived in the neighbourhood; and he was going home to execute this design, when, passing through the lobby, he was met by the landlady. He stopped to renew his inquiries whether any thing was known, or guessed, of Laura's retreat. But Mrs Stubbs could give him no more information on that subject than her maid, and she was infinitely more surprised at his question than Fanny had been; for having made certain observations which convinced her that Hargrave's visits were in the character of a lover, she had charitably concluded, and actually asserted, that Laura had accepted of his protection.