"I think you might have trusted me to know what was due to an old
friend," said Magdalen "but, oh, I ought to have made you feel that
we could think together."

"Perhaps," said Agatha, "there was a little consciousness on poor
dear Vera's part that she did not want you to know the terms she was
on."

They had tried only to let Thekla know that they were much alarmed
because Vera had gone out in a boat and not returned. It was
observable that, on the principle that where there is life there is
hope, Paula clung to the notion that Vera's having fled to Filsted;
while the two elder sisters, perhaps because they better knew what
such a flight might seem to others, would almost have preferred to
suppose there had been a fatal accident in the midst of youthful,
innocent sport.

The two were lingering sadly over their uneaten breakfast, talking
more freely when they had sent Thekla to feed her pets, when Mr.
Flight came up on his bicycle; but it was plain at the first moment
that he had no good news.

Nothing had been heard. It only appeared that one of the young
gardeners at Carrara had taken Captain Henderson's boat without
leave, to fetch one of the girls, but on entering the cove had found
the boathouse locked. He had moored the boat to a stake for want of
the ring that secured it within. When the storm threatened he ran
down to recover it, but it was gone, and he had concluded that the
gardeners had put it into the boathouse. It now appeared that they
had not seen it, and were very angry at its having been meddled with.