Don started on a hasty search for Pam, shouting and calling, but getting no response. Then Jack set off in another direction. But the time passed, and as they did not return, Galena went into the room where the wedding feast was spread, and explained the situation in a few terse words.
“Has Mr. Peveril really come back?” demanded Sophy, going rather white, for she had lived with Pam long enough to know that the old man’s return was longed for and feared by her friend in about equal proportions.
“No,” snapped Galena, who was feeling decidedly cross by this time. Everything regarding the wedding had gone so smoothly before, and it was horrid to have a hitch at this crucial point; she had worked so hard beforehand that she was decidedly aggrieved that she could not be left in peace to enjoy herself now. “That silly idiot of an Irishman said that an old man was waiting to see her, and you know what Pam is! She thought the old man had come home, so she rushed off to find him, and she will run until she drops, unless someone catches up with her and tells her that it was a mistake, and that the old man is only Gilbert Pomroy from Corner-Bottom.”
Everyone rose from the table now. Food had lost its flavour, and appetite had gone. The men went here and there through the undergrowth searching and searching for Pam, while the women and the girls wandered up and down, calling to her and listening in vain for an answer to their shouts.
It was Don who found her. When he sprang over the log, and saw her lying among the fern and the willow scrub white and unconscious, with a streak of blood on her cheek, he thought she was dead, and cried out in dismay.
Pam opened her eyes at the sound of his voice, staring at him for a few minutes in a bewildered sort of way, as if she could not remember where she was, or what had happened; then she gasped out in a frightened sort of tone: “Oh, Don, Grandfather has come back, and I cannot find him. Whatever shall I do?”
“He has not come back!” burst out Don in an explosive fashion. “It was only old Gilbert Pomroy from Corner-Bottom, who had come up to know if you would have that swarm of bees that you talked about. The Irishman, being a stranger, and not too sharp, did not know him, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was your grandfather; you rushed off without letting anyone know, and now everybody is out searching for you, and we have been in a regular panic.”
“I am so sorry!” murmured Pam, and there were tears in her eyes because of the reproach in his tone.
“This constant expecting to see the old man is wearing you out, and spoiling your life,” said Don, as he helped Pam to her feet, and supported her until she was able to stand alone. “Look here, we have got the clergyman, and we have the company; let us be married when we get back to the house, and then I can stay here and take care of you!”
To poor Pam, sore of head, and still more sore of heart, the suggestion was about the fiercest temptation she had ever had to face. If only she might take the easy way out, and have Don between herself and the ever-present dread of the old man’s return. She was owning to herself now that she did fear his coming back more than anything else, and it was the constant apprehension of it that was spoiling her life. Oh, to have the mystery cleared, and to be done with the uncertainty!