only tarrying a few minutes, had gone across the common; and the woman
supposed she was a visitor at a gentleman's house which was at the farther
end of the waste, for the path she took led to no town, no village. It
occurred to me then that Lilian avoided all high-roads, all places, even
the humblest, where men congregated together. But where could she have
passed the night? Not to fatigue the reader with the fruitless result of
frequent inquiries, I will but say that at the end of the second day I had
succeeded in ascertaining that I was still on her track; and though I had
ridden to and fro nearly double the distance--coming back again to places
I had left behind--it was at the distance of forty miles from L---- that I
last heard of her that second day. She had been sitting alone by a little
brook only an hour before. I was led to the very spot by a woodman--it
was at the hour of twilight when he beheld her; she was leaning her face
on her hand, and seemed weary. He spoke to her; she did not answer, but
rose and resumed her way along the banks of the streamlet. That night I
put up at no inn; I followed the course of the brook for miles, then
struck into every path that I could conceive her to have taken,--in vain.
Thus I consumed the night on foot, tying my horse to a tree, for he was
tired out, and returning to him at sunrise. At noon, the third day, I
again heard of her, and in a remote, savage part of the country. The
features of the landscape were changed; there was little foliage and
little culture, but the ground was broken into moulds and hollows, and
covered with patches of heath and stunted brushwood. She had been seen by
a shepherd, and he made the same observation as the first who had guided
me on her track,--she looked to him "like some one walking in her sleep."
An hour or two later, in a dell, amongst the furze-bushes, I chanced on a
knot of ribbon. I recognized the colour Lilian habitually wore; I felt
certain that the ribbon was hers. Calculating the utmost speed I could
ascribe to her, she could not be far off, yet still I failed to discover
her. The scene now was as solitary as a desert. I met no one on my way.