ger 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 into 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, 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 bac