Furthermore, when the clock had struck eleven and then twelve, and yet no sign of David or Anna, the Squire had reached for his fur cap and announced his intention of "going to look for 'em." But like the proverbial worm, the wife of his bosom had turned, and with all the determination of a white rabbit she announced:
"If I was you, Amasy, I'd stay to hum; seems as if you had made almost enough trouble for one day." With the old habit of authority, strong as ever, he looked at the worm, but there was a light in its eyes that warned him as a danger signal.
They were alone together, the Squire and his wife, and each was alone in sorrow, the yoke of severity she had bowed beneath for thirty years uncomplainingly galled to-night. It had sent her boy out into the storm—perhaps to his death. There was little love in her heart for Amasy.
He tried to think that he had only done his duty, that David and Anna would come back, and that, in the meantime, Louisa was less a comfort to him, in his trouble, than she had ever been before. It was, of course, his trouble; it never occurred to him that Louisa's heart might have been breaking on its own account.
The Squire found that duty was a cold comforter as the wretched hours wore on.
Sanderson had slunk from the house without a word immediately after Anna's departure. In the general upheaval no one missed him, and when they did it was too late for them to enjoy the comfort of shifting the blame to his guilty shoulders.
The professor followed Kate with the mute sympathy of a faithful dog; he did not dare attempt to comfort her. The sight of a woman in tears unnerved him; he would not have dared to intrude on her grief; he could only wait patiently for some circumstance to arise in which he could be of assistance. In the meantime he did the only practical thing within his power—he went about from time to time, poked the fires and put on coal.
Marthy would have liked to discuss the iniquity of Lennox Sanderson with any one—it was a subject on which she could have spent hours—but no one seemed inclined to divert Marthy conversationally. In fact, her popularity was not greater that night in the household than that of the Squire. She spent her time in running from room to room, exclaiming hysterically:
"Land sakes! Ain't it dreadful?"
The tension grew as time wore on without developments of any kind, the waiting with the haunting fear of the worst grew harder to bear than absolute calamity.