"I forgot to tell you, Frank, that you may as well call this evening on Dame Bell: you will be passing her door."
"Is Dame Bell ill again?" asked Frank.
"I fear so. A woman came for some medicine for her to-day."
"I thought she was at Falmouth."
"She is back again, it seems. Call and see her as you go along: you have plenty of time."
"Very well, Uncle Hugh."
The Bare Plain might be said to specially deserve its name this evening as Frank traversed it. In the morning the wind had been high, but nothing to what it was now. It played amidst the openings surrounding the Bottomless Shaft, going in with a whirr, coming out with a rush, and shrieked and moaned fearfully. The popular belief indulged in by the miners was, that this unearthly shrieking and moaning, which generally disturbed the air on these boisterous nights, proceeded not from the wind, but from Dan Sandon's ghost. Frank Raynor of course had no faith in the ghost—Dan Sandon's, or any other—but he shuddered as he hastened on.
The illness, more incipient than declared as yet, from which Mrs. Bell was suffering, had seemed to cease with her trouble. Her husband's mysterious disappearance was followed by much necessary exertion, both of mind and body, on her own part; and her ailments almost left her. Dr. Raynor suspected—perhaps knew—that the improvement was only temporary; but he did not tell her so. Dame Bell moved briskly about her house during this time, providing for the comforts of her lodgers, and waiting for the husband who did not come.
Rosaline did not come, either. And her prolonged absence seemed to her mother most unaccountable, her excuses for it unreasonable. As the days and the weeks had gone on, and Rosaline's return seemed to be no nearer than ever, Dame Bell grew angry. She at length made up her mind to go to Falmouth and bring back the runaway with her own hands.
Easier said than done: as Mrs. Bell found. When after two days' absence, she returned to her home on the Bare Plain, she returned alone: her daughter was not with her. This was only a few days ago. The dame had been ailing ever since, some of the old symptoms having returned again—the result perhaps of the travelling—and she had that day sent a neighbour to Dr. Raynor's for some medicine.