'Emmiline had not the key of our boat,' said Mr. Macrae, 'I have made
sure of that; and not a man in the village would launch a boat on
Sunday.'

'We must go and help to search for them,' said Merton; he only wished to
be doing something, anything.

'I shall not be a minute in changing my dress.'

Bude also volunteered, and in a few minutes, having drunk a glass of wine
and eaten a crust of bread, they and Mr. Macrae were hurrying towards the
cove. The storm was passing; by the time when they reached the sea-side
there were rifts of clear light in the sky above them. They had walked
rapidly and silently, the swollen stream roaring beneath them. It had
rained torrents in the hills. There was nothing to be said, but the mind
of each man was busy with the gloomiest conjectures. These had to be far-
fetched, for in a country so thinly peopled, and so honest and friendly,
within a couple of miles at most from home, on a Sunday evening, what
conceivable harm could befall a man and a maid?

'Can we trust the man?' was in Merton's mind. 'If they have been ferried
across to the village, they would have set out to return before now,' he
said aloud; but there was no boat on the faint silver of the sea loch.
'The cliffs are the likeliest place for an accident, if there _was_ an
accident,' he considered, with a pang. The cliffs might have tempted the
light-footed girl. In fancy he saw her huddled, a ghastly heap, the
faint wind fluttering the folds of her dress, at the bottom of the rocks.
She had been wearing a long skirt, not her wont in the Highlands; it
would be dangerous to climb in that; she might have forgotten, climbed,
and caught her foot, and fallen.

'Blake may have snatched at her, and been dragged down with her,' Merton
thought. All the horrid fancies of keen anxiety flitted across his
mind's eye. He paused, and made an effort over himself. There _must_ be
some other harmless explanation, an adventure to laugh at--for Blake and
the girl. Poor comfort, that!

The men who had been searching were scattered about the sides of the
cove, and, distinguishing the new-comers, gathered towards them.

'No,' they said, 'they had found nothing except a little book that seemed
to belong to Mr. Blake.'

It had been discovered near the place where Merton and Lady Bude were
sitting on the previous evening. When found it was lying open, face
downwards. In the faint light Merton could see that the book was full of