"You didn't see a sign of him in the woods?"

Jerome hesitated visibly.

The doctor's eyes shone more sharply. "You didn't, eh?"

"No, sir," said Jerome.

"Does your mother know it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How is she?"

"She fainted away, but she's better."

The doctor got stiffly out of the chaise, took his medicine-chest,
and went into the house. "Stay here till I come out," he ordered
Jerome, without looking back.

"The doctor's goin' to send a posse out lookin' with lanterns," Jake
Noyes told Jerome.

Jerome made a grunt, both surly and despairing, in response. He was
leaning against the wheel of the chaise; he felt strangely weak.

"Mebbe we'll find him 'live an' well," said Jake, consolingly.

"No, ye won't."