and returned wildly, and were seen speaking to others again
who gathered from the house; the wild wireless telegraphy
which is the education of countryside communities spread it
farther and farther before the fact itself was fully realized;
and before nightfall a quarter of the county knew that Squire Vane
had vanished like a burst bubble.

Widely as the wild story was repeated, and patiently as it was pondered,
it was long before there was even the beginning of a sequel to it.
In the interval Paynter had politely removed himself from the house
of mourning, or rather of questioning, but only so far as the village inn;
for Barbara Vane was glad of the traveler's experience and sympathy,
in addition to that afforded her by the lawyer and doctor as old
friends of the family. Even Treherne was not discouraged from his
occasional visits with a view to helping the hunt for the lost man.
The five held many counsels round the old garden table, at which
the unhappy master of the house had dined for the last time;
and Barbara wore her old mask of stone, if it was now a more tragic mask.
She had shown no passion after the first morning of discovery,
when she had broken forth once, speaking strangely enough in the view
of some of her hearers.

She had come slowly out of the house, to which her own or some one
else's wisdom had relegated her during the night of the wager;
and it was clear from her face that somebody had told her
the truth; Miles, the butler, stood on the steps behind her;
and it was probably he.

"Do not be much distressed, Miss Vane," said Doctor Brown, in a low
and rather uncertain voice. "The search in the wood has hardly begun.