David."
She read this with amazement and distress, the tears welling up in her eyes.
"Oh, David!" she exclaimed. "Poor, poor old man! What will he do all by himself, wandering about the country with no money! It's dreadful! How could he think of such a thing! He is so weak, too!—he can't possibly get very far!"
Here a sudden thought struck her, and picking up Charlie, who had followed her downstairs from her bedroom and was now trotting to and fro, sniffing the air in a somewhat disconsolate and dubious manner, she ran out of the house bareheaded, and hurried up to the top of the "coombe." There she paused, shading her eyes from the sun and looking all about her. It was a lovely morning, and the sea, calm and sparkling with sunbeams, shone like a blue glass flecked with gold. The sky was clear, and the landscape fresh and radiant with the tender green of the springtime verdure. But everything was quite solitary. Vainly her glance swept from left to right and from right to left again,—there was no figure in sight such as the one she sought and half-expected to discover. Putting Charlie down to follow at her heels, she walked quickly across the intervening breadth of moor to the highroad, and there paused, looking up and down its dusty length, hoping against hope that she might see David somewhere trudging slowly along on his lonely way, but there was not a human creature visible. Charlie, assuming a highly vigilant attitude, cocked his tiny ears and sniffed the air suspiciously, as though he scented the trail of his lost master, but no clue presented itself as likely to serve the purpose of tracking the way in which he had gone. Moved by a sudden loneliness and despondency, Mary slowly returned to the cottage, carrying the little dog in her arms, and was affected to tears again when she entered the kitchen, because it looked so empty. The bent figure, the patient aged face, on which for her there was ever a smile of grateful tenderness—these had composed a picture by her fireside to which she had grown affectionately accustomed,—and to see it no longer there made her feel almost desolate. She lit the fire listlessly and prepared her own breakfast without interest—it was a solitary meal and lacked flavour. She was glad when, after breakfast, Angus Reay came in, as was now his custom, to say good-morning, and to "gain inspiration,"—so he told her,—for his day's work. He was no less astonished than herself at David's sudden departure.
"Poor old chap! I believe he thinks he is in our way, Mary!" he said, as he read the letter of explanation which their missing friend had left behind him. "And yet he says quite plainly here that he will be back before Sunday. Perhaps he will. But where can he have gone to?"
"Not far, surely!" and Mary looked, as she felt, perplexed. "He has no money!"
"Not a penny?"
"Not a penny! He makes me take everything he earns to help pay for his keep and as something towards the cost of his illness last year. I don't want it—but it pleases him that I should have it——"
"Of course—I understand that,"—and Angus slipped an arm round her waist, while he read the letter through again. "But if he hasn't a penny, how can he get along?"
"He must be on the tramp again," said Mary. "But he isn't strong enough to tramp. I went up the coombe this morning and right out to the highroad, for I thought I might see him and catch up with him—because I know it would take him ever so long to walk a mile. But he had gone altogether."