at nightfall, in a hamlet about ten miles from L----, a labourer declared
he had seen a young lady dressed as I described, who passed by him in a
path through the fields a little before noon; that he was surprised to see
one so young, so well dressed, and a stranger to the neighbourhood (for he
knew by sight the ladies of the few families scattered around) walking
alone; that as he stepped out of the path to make way for her, he looked
hard fnto her face, and she did not heed him,--seemed to gaze right before
her, into space. If her expression had been less quiet and gentle, he
should have thought, he could scarcely say why, that she was not quite
right in her mind; there was a strange unconscious stare in her eyes, as
if she were walking in her sleep. Her pace was very steady,--neither
quick nor slow. He had watched her till she passed out of sight, amidst a
wood through which the path wound its way to a village at some distance.

I followed up this clew. I arrived at the village to which my informant
directed me, but night had set in. Most of the houses were closed, so I
could glean no further information from the cottages or at the inn. But
the police superintendent of the district lived in the village, and to him
I gave instructions which I had not given, and, indeed, would have been
disinclined to give, to the police at L----. He was intelligent and
kindly; he promised to communicate at once with the different
police-stations for miles round, and with all delicacy and privacy. It
was not probable that Lilian could have wandered in one day much farther
than the place at which I then was; it was scarcely to be conceived that
she could baffle my pursuit and the practised skill of the police. I
rested but a few hours, at a small public-house, and was on horseback
again at dawn. A little after sunrise I again heard of the wanderer. At
a lonely cottage, by a brick-kiln, in the midst of a wide common, she had
stopped the previous evening, and asked for a draught of milk. The woman
who gave it to her inquired if she had lost her way. She said "No;" and,