If events had been moving rapidly with Lewis, they had by no means been
at a standstill at Nadir since that troubled day on which he had
rebelled, quarreled, and fled, leaving behind him wrath and tears and
awakened hearts where all had been apathy and somnolence.

Many happenings at Nadir were dated from the day that Lewis went away.
Late that night mammy and Mrs. Leighton, aided by trembling Natalie, had
had to carry the Reverend Orme from his chair in the school-room to his
bed. The left side of his face was drawn grotesquely out of line, but
despite the disfigurement, there was a look of peace in his ravaged
countenance, as of one who welcomes night joyfully and calmly after a
long battle.

Perhaps it was this look of peace that made Ann Leighton regard this
latest as the lightest of all the calamities that had fallen upon her
frail shoulders. She felt that in a measure the catastrophe had brought
the Reverend Orme back--nearer to her heart. Her heart, which had seemed
to atrophy and shrivel from disuse since the poignant fullness of the
last days of Shenton, was suddenly revivified. Love, pity, tender
care,--all the discarded emotions,--returned to light up her withered
face and give it beauty. Night and day she stayed beside the Reverend
Orme, reading aright his slightest movement.

To Natalie one need stood out above all others--the need for Lewis. At
first she waited for news of him, but none came; then she sought out Dom
Francisco. Word was passed to the cattlemen. They said Lewis had been
bound for Oeiras. A messenger was sent to Oeiras. He came back with the
news that Lewis had never arrived there. He had been traced half-way.
After that no one on the long straight trail had seen the boy. The
wilderness had swallowed him.