ing, and which he had hardly expected to accomplish before
late that night, had been partly transacted at a little tavern where the
coach horses had been changed that morning, and where he had met most
unexpectedly the two men whom he had been going to see, who were coming
straight to his town. So he turned him back with them and came home, and
they were at this minute attending to some other business in the town,
while he had come home to announce to Marcia that they would take supper
with him and perhaps spend the night.

Marcia was nowhere to be found. He went upstairs and timidly knocked at
her door, but no answer came. Then he thought she might be asleep and
knocked louder, but only the humming-bird in the honeysuckle outside her
window sent back a little humming answer through the latch-hole. Finally
he ventured to open the door and peep in, but he saw that quiet loneliness
reigned there.

He went downstairs again and searched in the pantry and kitchen and then
stood still. The back door was stretched open as though it had been thrown
back in haste. He followed its suggestion and went out, looking down the
little brick path that led to the garden. Ah! what was that? Something
gleamed in the sun with a spot of blue behind it. The bit of blue ribbon
she had worn at her throat, with a tiny gold brooch unclasped sticking in.

Miranda caught sight of him coming, and crouched behind the currants.

David came on searching the path on every side. A bit of a branch had been
torn from a succulent, tender plant that leaned over the path and was
lying in the way. It seemed another blaze along the trail. Further down
where the bushes almost met a single fragment of a thread waved on a thorn
as though it had snatched for more in the passing and had caught only
this. David hardly knew whether he was following these little things or
not, but at any rate they were apparently not leading him anywhere for he
stopped abruptly in front of the fence and looked both ways behind the
bushes that grew along in front of it. Then he turned to go back again.
Miranda held her breath. Something touched David's foot in turning, and,
looking down, he saw Marcia's large shell comb lying there in the grass.
Curiously he picked it up and examined it. It was like finding fragments
of a wreck along the sand.

All at once Miranda arose from her hiding place and confronted him
timidly. She was not the same Miranda who came down upon Harry Temple,
ho