I got up at Miss Lally's words. Master Bevil was asleep, luckily.
'You go on with your tea, my dears, there's good children,' I said. 'I must see about Master Francis, he must be somewhere about the house. He'd never have thought of going out again in such weather,' for it was pouring in torrents.
I went downstairs, asking everybody I met if they had seen him, but they all shook their heads, and at last, after searching through the library and the big drawing-rooms, and even more unlikely places, I got so frightened that I made bold to knock at Sir Hulbert's study door, where he was busy writing, my lady working beside him.
They had been talking of Master Francis just before I went in, and they were far more distressed than annoyed at my news, my lady growing quite pale.
'O Hulbert!' she exclaimed, 'if he has run away it is my fault.'
'Nonsense, Helen,' he said, meaning to cheer her. 'The boy has got sense and good feeling, he'd never risk making himself ill again. And where would he run away to? He couldn't go to sea. But certainly the sooner we find him the better.'
He went off to speak to some of the men, while my lady and I, Mrs. Brent and some of the others, started again to search through the house. We did search, looking in really impossible corners, where he couldn't have squeezed himself in. Then the baby awoke, and I had to go to him, and Miss Bess and Miss Lally took their turn at this melancholy game of hide-and-seek, but it was all no use. The dull gray afternoon darkened into night, the rain still pouring down, and nothing was heard of the missing boy. Sir Hulbert at last left off pretending not to be anxious. He had his strongest horse put into the dog-cart, and drove away to the town to give notice to the police, stopping on the way at every place where it was the least likely the boy could have been seen.
He didn't get back till eleven o'clock. My lady and Mrs. Brent and me were waiting up for him, for Master Bevil was sleeping sweetly, and I had put the nursery-maid to watch beside him. The young ladies, poor dears, were in bed too, and, as is happily the way with children, had fallen asleep in spite of their tears and sad distress.
We knew the moment we saw Sir Hulbert that he had no good tidings to give us. His sunburnt face looked almost white, as he came into the hall soaking wet and shook his head.
'I have done everything, Nelly,' he said, 'everything that can be done, and now we must try to be patient till some news comes. It is impossible, everybody says, that a boy like him, so well known in the neighbourhood too, could disappear without some one seeing him, or that he could remain in hiding for long. It is perfectly extraordinary that we have not found him already, and somehow I can scarcely believe he is doing it on purpose. He has such good feeling, and must know how anxious we should be.'