Having noticed this I dropped behind at the first opportunity and slipped among the trees, in a direction in which I knew I should find another path that would take me home.

Upon this track I by and by emerged, and walked along it in silent thought till, at a bend, I suddenly encountered M.de la Feste standing stock still and smiling thoughtfully at me.
'Where is Caroline ?' said I.
'Only a little way off,' says he.

'When we missed you from behind us we thought you might have mistaken the direction we had followed, so she has gone one way to find you and I have come this way.' We then went back to find Caroline, but could not discover her anywhere, and the upshot was that he and I were wandering about the woods alone for more than an hour.

On reaching home we found she had given us up after searching a little while, and arrived there some time before.

I should not be so disturbed by the incident if I had not perceived that, during her absence from us, he did not make any earnest effort to rediscover her; and in answer to my repeated expressions of wonder as to whither she could have wandered he only said, 'Oh, she's quite safe; she told me she knew the way home from any part of this wood.