Even father owned that things looked bad now, and he let me send every man about the place--some one way, and some another--to hunt for my poor darling.

I went into Crosber myself, though it was getting late by this time, and made inquiries of every creature I knew in the village; but it was all no good: no one had seen anything of the lady I was looking for." "And the husband ?" Gilbert asked again; "what of him ?" "He came next day at the usual hour, after we had been astir all night, and the farm-labourers had been far and wide looking for Mrs.Holbrook.

I never saw any one seem so shocked and horrified as he did when we told him how his wife had been missing for more than four-and-twenty hours.

He is not a gentleman to show his feelings much at ordinary times, and he was quiet enough in the midst of his alarm; but he turned as white as death, and I never saw the natural colour come back to his face all the time he was down here." "How long did he stay ?" "He only left yesterday.

He was travelling about the country all the time, coming back here of a night to sleep, and with the hope that we might have heard something in his absence.