“Gently, gently!” I cried. “What’s wrong with Firefly?”
“Nothing’s wrong with the hoss, sir,” he said, gruffly; “but we’ve had visitors to-day, and whether it’s them or not I don’t know, but the missus is upset, like.”
“Is your mistress ill?” I cried, startled, dreading I knew not what.
“I dunno, sir,” was all I could get out of Thomas for some minutes, until I was really angry, when he blurted out that “one of them Pyms—the old ’un, he thought,” had come and had had a long interview with my wife, since which no one had seen her or had been able to find her.
Distracted, I had poor Firefly driven home at racing speed, and searched, first the house, then the grounds, with lanterns.
No result. I feared calling her name, for the cottagers might hear, and there would be fresh talk such as that Daisy repeated to me.
May I never, never have to go through such a time again! I was getting mad with anxiety and fear when something seemed to say to me—not in my ear, but in my mind:
“Her father’s grave.”
With a flash of hope, I bade the men who accompanied me stay where they were; and taking a lantern went on into the churchyard alone.
The lantern sent a flicker upon a black heap on the grass: Lilia, asleep—or dead?