"Flor-a-a!"
No answer; just the lake, sighing and rippling in the sedge.
"Could she have gone down to the water?" Howard said; "have you got such a thing as a lantern? I'll go out and look."
"No; but light that lamp on the center-table—a candle might blow out."
He went into the other room, and she heard him scratch a match and fumble with the lamp-chimney. In that minute, alone, listening all the while for Flora's returning step, her mind leaped back to that moment in front of the fire. His look—astounded, incredulous, shocked—was burned into her memory; his distressed words rung in her ears. She was not conscious of any pain because he did not love her. She was simply stunned by the jolt of suddenly and unexpectedly stepping down into the old, irrational modesties....
Her face began to scorch. She went out on the porch and called again, mechanically; some water dripping from the eaves on her bare head ran down one blazing cheek; the coolness gave her an acute sense of relief that struggled through the medley of tearing emotions; she was saying to herself: "Where can she be? She hasn't washed the dishes! (He refused me.)"
Howard, holding the lamp over his head, came up behind her and went down the steps into the mist. Fred followed him, Zip lumbering along at her heels.
"She must have left the house this way; we know that," she said.
"Come down to the beach," he said.
"Yes; sometimes she used to sit on that big rock," Frederica remembered.