In the course of the evening his disappearance became known throughout the vicinity.

The first conjectures were that he had set off on a visit somewhere and would soon return.

Paying visits was not much after his manner of life; yet his family half believed that he had gone off to cheer himself up a bit.
Jotham and his wife, and Catherine, too, now remembered that he had been unusually silent for a week.

A search of the room he occupied showed that he had gone away wearing his every-day clothes.

I remember that the old Squire and grandmother Ruth looked grave but said very little.
Grandpa Edwards was not the kind of man to get lost.