twelve o'clock
`` You wrong me , Mr. Eldridge , '' replied she , `` if you suppose I have ever permitted your grand-daughter to go out unless with the other ladies . I would to heaven I could form any probable conjecture concerning her absence this morning , but it is a mystery which her return can alone unravel . '' Servants were now dispatched to every place where there was the least hope of hearing any tidings of the fugitives , but in vain . Dreadful were the hours of horrid suspense which Mr. Eldridge passed till twelve o'clock , when that suspense was reduced to a shocking certainty , and every spark of hope which till then they had indulged , was in a moment extinguished . Mr. Eldridge was preparing , with a heavy heart , to return to his anxiously-expecting children , when Madame Du Pont received the following note without either name or date . `` Miss Temple is well , and wishes to relieve the anxiety of her parents , by letting them know she has voluntarily put herself under the protection of a man whose future study shall be to make her happy . Pursuit is needless ; the measures taken to avoid discovery are too effectual to be eluded .