"Of course!" echoed the chorus.
I saw a disposition to laugh on Pet's face.
"And none of you knows where she is?" I put the question gravely, looking at each in quick succession.
Maggie reddened, and a glance passed between her and Miss Millington. All, however, joined in one emphatic and half-angry denial.
"Then there is nothing to be done but to search again," I said. "Nona is very wrong to remain away so long. Where did any one see her last?"
Accounts agreed here. She had been observed standing near the lesser hole. Denham further declared that he didn't see how she could have got away from the trees in its neighbourhood, unnoticed: and I saw that he either imagined, or wished me to imagine, the possibility that she had fallen in. I did not believe he would view the idea so quietly, if he really believed it; and I counted Nona too competent a climber as well as too sensible a girl to do anything so foolish.
However, we all trooped thither, and peered over the edge into the blackness below. Denham shouted Nona's name vigorously: and I was conscious of an odd sense of unreality, almost inclining me to laugh.
"If she slipped over at all, she'd roll miles!" Denham declared.
"Hardly," I said. "But really, Denham, this is rather absurd."
"Why, that's the very thing you were afraid we should do!" cried Maggie.