That evening, Theodore returned home in the rain and went straight for the guesthouse, eager to see Evelyn. Though she’d had a walking lesson scheduled in the morning, she would’ve been free after that.
I wonder if we can finally eat dinner together...
He really wanted to spend more time with her, talk about this and that, touch her more and watch her innocent reactions. But he had obligations, and so, for now, he was committed to enduring their time apart. He was stressed, his mood wasn’t the best, but it was all for the sake of a joyous future with Evelyn.
Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn...
Whenever he felt like he was losing his grip, Theodore would chant Evelyn’s name in his mind, summoning her lovely smile to the forefront of his mind. It would brighten his mood and mysteriously calm his turbulent spirit.
She was strange last night, though...
Theodore had been thoroughly impressed when she’d told him about her tutors, but Evelyn had frowned sadly and rushed upstairs. He’d chased after her and called out several times from the other side of her closed door, but she’d refused to come out and only given him vague answers.
Was she mad at me?
Had he offended her in some way? He’d barely slept last night thinking about it, but still couldn’t understand why she was angry.
I need to apologize to her.
As he climbed up the stairs of the guesthouse, a door on the upper floor flung open. He looked up, hoping to see Evelyn, but instead was greeted by the small face of his sister Karin peeking through the railings.
“Brother, this is bad!” she said.
“What’s wrong, Karin?”
“Ms. Saint and Kira are gone!”
“Gone? Have they gone out somewhere, you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Karin said tearfully, shaking her head.
Behind her stood a group of confused-looking maids.
“None of the servants know where they went. Some people saw them in the morning, though. So we looked in Ms. Saint’s room, and we found a letter on the desk,” Karin explained.
Theodore ran up the stairs.
He stepped inside the empty room and immediately spotted a white envelope bathed in the setting sunlight. Hastily, he used a letter opener to pry free the stationery inside.
Peeking from beside him, Karin asked impatiently, “What does it say?”
The letter was full of difficult turns of phrase that she couldn’t understand. But Theodore was silent for a long time, shocked by the letter’s contents.
It quoted poetry about a numb traveler wandering in search of a final resting place. Theodore gripped the letter, written in Evelyn’s unmistakable handwriting, so tightly that the paper wrinkled. After reading it over and over and contemplating the contents at length, he exhaled deeply.
His hand trembled as it gripped the letter. How had it come to this? What had he done wrong? Where had he erred?
“Brother, what’s wrong?”
“Karin. I need you to stay calm, okay?”
Even as he asked this of his sister, Theodore was fully aware of his own lack of composure.
He gritted his teeth and somehow managed to say, “Evelyn has lost her will to live and run away.”