"In the name of Heaven, now what are we to do?" exclaimed Lyon Berners, speaking more to himself than to another.
Joe was standing, leaning upon his stick in an attitude of the deepest despair. But suddenly he raised his head, and a gleam of light shot over his dark face, as he said:
"I tell you what we can do, Marster: where she's took to, we can find out at all ewents. I say where she's took to, for she never went of her own accords."
"Heaven help my poor darling! no; she never did. But how do you think you can trace her, Joe?"
"This a-way! I'll take the freshest of them horses, and ride home as fast as I can for life and death; and I'll snatch up her little dog as has been pining away ever since she left, and I'll bring it here and make it smell to the bedclothes where she lay, and then put it on the scent, to lead us the way she went."
"Eureka, Joe! The instinct of faithful affection, in man or brute, sometimes puts pure reason to the blush by its superior acumen," exclaimed Mr. Berners.
"I don't know no more 'n the dead what you're a-talking about, Marster; but that's the way to find out where Miss Sybil was took," answered practical Joe.
"Come, then, we will go at once and look at the horses. I think, Joe, that one of your cart horses would be better to take, as they have not been so hard worked as ours," said Mr. Berners, as they ran down the steep to the thicket in the rear of the chapel, where they had left their horses.
In a very few minutes Joe had selected and saddled his horse, and stood ready to start.
"I needn't tell you to be prudent, Joe, and to drop no hint of your errand," said Mr. Berners.