The route of the little brook for several miles was explored by a party of men from the Palace and The Ridges. The boys were known to frequent it, and a day or two before Sandy had been seen up to his waist in the water, trying to entice a lively water-rat.
It was wonderful how many people helped in the search. To all, the boys were well known, and, now that trouble had come upon them, well beloved. Their fearlessness and bonhomie were remembered, and their mischief only with indulgent excuses. And Mr. Pelham was taken to all hearts that sorrowful night, for the sake of the pretty baby who was lost.
No one was more energetic and suggestive than Mrs. Lytchett, no one kinder, no one more tearful. It was she who headed a search party through the cathedral, recalling to mind how Marjorie had once got herself locked up there nearly all night through a fit of obstinacy. But no children were discovered.
"If only the Bishop were here—he would know what to do," she sighed frequently, as news kept coming in that nothing had been found of the missing ones. They seemed to have vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up. No one had seen them—nothing had been heard of them after Sandy's visit to his sister's room.
"But what could he want the blanket for?"
Mr. Warde, after two or three fruitless journeys, had again come back to the Court for news, hoping that somebody else might have been more fortunate. It was just on the edge of dawn, in that stillness when the first faint twitter of the birds is just beginning.
As he came down the broad pavement to the Court gate, the eastern sky was growing clear above the chimney stacks of the Deanery. Lights were still shining in the windows round, and, as he neared the gate, Marjorie came forward quickly.
The sight of her wan face was a shock to him; she was still in the pretty evening dress, above which, in the twilight of the dawn, her neck and throat shone white. She had the air of some broken lily—desolate, woeful.
Mr. Warde's heart went out to her with a great compassion. His eyes grew dim as her wistful glance met his.
