In the roar of the surf on the shore, and the wailing cry of the night wind, there was no voice to tell what had happened in the lonely gloom of the rainy night. No, surely, or the faithful servant, who entered the cottage dripping, after her constitutional, would have fled wildly to the scene of the tragedy, instead of standing there in the kitchen, talking to Betsy Ann, as she placed her wet umbrella in a corner to drip.
"I went up to Miss Jo's," said Midge, shaking herself, and giving Betsy Ann an impromptu shower-bath, "and she made me stay for tea, and fetch this umberel home. How's the Missis—asleep?"
"Yes," said Betsy Ann, looking nervous and scared, for she was mortally afraid of the dwarf; "but you didn't—I mean to say, was not Miss Natty to Blake's?"
"Miss—What!" screamed Midge; "how should Miss Natty get there, stupid! Isn't she in her own room?"
"No, she ain't," said Betsy Ann, looking still more scared; "and I don't know where she is, neither! She came down stairs just afore dark, with her things on, and went out in all the rain. She wouldn't tell me where she was going, and she wouldn't stay in for me; and you needn't look so mad about it, for I couldn't help it! There!"
Midge's florid face turned ashen gray with terror; a vague, nameless, dreadful fear, that brought cold beads of sweat out on her brow. Betsy Ann had no need to back in alarm; it was not anger that blanched the homely face, and her ears were in no danger of being boxed.
"Which way did she take?" she asked, her very voice husky with that creeping fear.
"She went straight along," Betsy Ann replied, "as if a going to the shore."
It was the answer Midge had expected, but the hands fastening her shawl shook so, as she heard it, that she could hardly finish that operation.
"Go to Mr. Blake!" she said; "run for your life, and tell Mr. Val to hurry to the beach, and fetch a lantern. Tell him I am afraid something dreadful has happened."