"To be sure," said he apologetically, "I should have told you before
of the sad business. Yes, Sir, Major Lashley disappeared, utterly from
this very house on the eleventh night of last December, and though the
country-side was scoured and every ragamuffin for miles round brought
to question, no trace of him has anywhere been discovered from that
day to this."

An intuition slipped into Sir Charles Fosbrook's mind, and though he
would have dismissed it as entirely unwarrantable, persisted there.
The thought of the steep slope of ground before the house and the mist
in the hollow between the two hills. The mist was undoubtedly the
exhalation from a pond. The pond might have reeds which might catch
and gather a body. But the pond would have been dragged. Still the
thought of the pond remained while he expressed a vague hope that the
Major might by God's will yet be restored to them.

He had barely ended before a louder gust of rain than ordinary smote
upon the windows and immediately there followed a knocking upon the
hall-door. The sound was violent, and it came with so opposite a
rapidity upon the heels of Fosbrook's words that it thrilled and
startled him. There was something very timely in the circumstances of
night and storm and that premonitory clapping at the door. Sir Charles
looked towards the door in a glow of anticipation. He had time to
notice, however, how deeply Resilda herself was stirred; her left hand
which had lain loose upon the table-cloth was now tightly clenched,
and she had a difficulty in breathing. The one strange point in her
conduct was that although she looked towards the door like Sir Charles
Fosbrook, there was more of suspense in the look than of the eagerness
of welcome. The butler, however, had no news of Major Lashley to
announce. He merely presented the compliments of Mr. Gibson Jerkley