oiled amain into the late autumn, but no hint or shadow of
her rewarded the quest, and sustained failure in an enterprise where his
heart was set, for his mother's sake and his own, acted upon the man's
character, and indeed wrought marked changes in him. Despite the letter
of Chris, hope died in Will, and he openly held his sister dead; but
Mrs. Blanchard, while sufficiently distressed before her daughter's
flight, never feared for her life, and doubted not that she would return
in such time as it pleased her to do so.

"Her nature be same as yours an' your faither's afore you. When he'd got
the black monkey on his shoulder he'd oftentimes leave the vans for a
week and tramp the very heart o' the Moor alone. Fatigue of body often
salves a sore mind. He loved thunder o' dark nights--my husband did--and
was better for it seemin'ly. Chris be safe, I do think, though it's a
heart-deep stroke this for me, 'cause I judge she caan't 'zactly love me
as I thought, or else she'd never have left me. Still, the cold world,
what she knaws so little 'bout, will drive her back to them as love her,
come presently."

So, with greater philosophy than her son could muster, Damaris practised
patience; while Will, after a perambulation of the country from north to
south, from west to east, after weeks on the lonely heaths and
hiding-places of the ultimate Moor, after visits to remote hamlets and
inquiries at a hundred separate farmhouses, returned to Newtake, worn,
disappointed, and gloomy to a degree beyond the experience of those who
knew him. Neither did the cloud speedily evaporate, as was most usual
with his transient phases of depression. Circumstances combined to
deepen it, and as the winter crowded down more quickly than usual, its
leaden months of scanty daylight and cold rains left their mark on Will
as time had never done before.

During those few and sombre days which represented the epact of the
dying year, Martin Grimbal returned to Chagford. He had extended his
investigations beyond the time originally allotted to them, and now came
back to his home with plenty of fresh material, and even one or two new
theories for his book. He had received no communications during his
absence, and the news of the bee-keeper's death and his sweetheart's
disappearance, suddenly delivered by his housekeeper, went far to
overwhelm him. It danced joy up again through the grey granite. For a
brief hour splendid vistas of happiness reopened, an