ross the neck and bring her home."

"For madam to walk in the woods?" I said slowly. "So she walks there?
With whom?"

"With Diccon and Angela," he answered. "They went before the sun was
an hour high, so Goodwife Allen says. I thought that you--" "No," I
told him. "On the contrary, I left command that she should not venture
outside the garden. There are more than Indians abroad."

I was white with anger; but besides anger there was fear in my heart.

"I will go at once and bring her home," I said. As I spoke, I happened
to glance toward the fort and the shipping in the river beyond.
Something seemed wrong with the prospect. I looked again, and saw what
hated and familiar object was missing.

"Where is the Santa Teresa?" I demanded, the fear at my heart tugging
harder.

"She dropped downstream this morning. I passed her as I came up from
Archer's Hope, awhile ago. She's anchored in midstream off the big
spring. Why did she go?"

We looked each other in the eyes, and each read the thought that neither
cared to put into words.

"You can take the brown mare," I said, speaking lightly because my heart
was as heavy as lead, "and we'll ride to the forest. It is all right, I
dare say. Doubtless we'll find her garlanding herself with the grape, or
playing with the squirrels, or asleep on the red leaves, with her head
in Angela's lap."

"Doubtless," he said. "Don't lose time. I'll saddle the mare and
overtake you in two minutes."

CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH WE SEEK A LOST LADY

BESIDE the minister and myself, nothing human moved in the crimson
woods. Blue haze was there, and the steady drift of colored leaves, and
the sunshine freely falling through bared limbs, but no man or woman.
The fallen leaves rustled as the deer passed, the squirrels chattered
and the foxes barked, but we heard no sweet laughter or ringing song.

We found a bank of moss, and lying upon it a chaplet of red-brown oak
leaves; further on, the mint beside a crystal streamlet had been trodden
underfoot; then, flung down upon the brown earth beneath some pines, we
came upon a long trailer of scarlet vine. Beyond was a fairy hollow, a
cuplike depression, curtained from the world by the red vines that hung
from the trees upon its brim, and carpeted with the gold of a great
maple; and here Fear became a giant with whom it was vain to wrestle.

There had been a struggle in the hollow. The curtain of vines was
torn, the boughs of a sumach bent and br