The rector was not present, and the little expedition was about to start, when Macey came running up to say that Mr Syme was close behind.
This decided the doctor to pause for a few minutes, and while it was still twilight the rector with Gilmore and Distin came up, the former apologising for being so late.
“I’m afraid that I fell asleep in my chair, Lee,” he whispered. “I’m very sorry.”
“There is no need to say anything,” said the doctor sadly. “It is hardly daybreak even now.”
Gilmore looked haggard, and his face on one side was marked by the leather of the chair in which he had been asleep. Macey looked red-eyed too, but Distin was perfectly calm and as neat as if he had been to bed as usual to enjoy an uninterrupted night’s rest.
When the start was made, it having been decided to follow the same course as over-night, hardly a word was said, for in addition to the depression caused by the object in view, the morning felt chilly, and everything looked grim and strange in the mist.
The rector and doctor led the way with the churchwarden, then followed the rector’s three pupils, and after them the servants and townspeople in silence.
Macey was the first of the rectory trio to speak, and he harked back to the idea that Vane must be caught in the brambles just as he had been when trying to make a short cut, but Gilmore scouted the notion at once.
“Impossible!” he said, “Vane wouldn’t be so stupid. If he is lost on the moor it is because he slipped into one of those black bog holes, got tangled in the water-weeds and couldn’t get out.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed Macey with a shudder. “Oh, I say: don’t talk like that. It’s too horrid. You don’t think so, do you, Distie? Why it has made you as white as wax to hear him talk like that.”