Putting Charlie down to follow at her heels, she walked quickly across the intervening breadth of moor to the highroad, and there paused, looking up and down its dusty length, hoping against hope that she might see David somewhere trudging slowly along on his lonely way, but there was not a human creature visible.

Charlie, assuming a highly vigilant attitude, cocked his tiny ears and sniffed the air suspiciously, as though he scented the trail of his lost master, but no clue presented itself as likely to serve the purpose of tracking the way in which he had gone.

Moved by a sudden loneliness and despondency, Mary slowly returned to the cottage, carrying the little dog in her arms, and was affected to tears again when she entered the kitchen, because it looked so empty.

The bent figure, the patient aged face, on which for her there was ever a smile of grateful tenderness--these had composed a picture by her fireside to which she had grown affectionately accustomed,--and to see it no longer there made her feel almost desolate.

She lit the fire listlessly and prepared her own breakfast without interest--it was a solitary meal and lacked flavour.