“No, Miss. My father has been as far as the iron gate, and found it locked. It was no use going on.”
“He could not have walked farther without help,” Mrs. Toft said. “If the Master’s not between us and the gardens he’s not that way.”
“Then where is he?” Mary cried, aghast. She looked from one to the other. “Where can he be, Toft?”
Toft raised his hands and let them fall. It was clear that he had given up hope.
But his wife was of different mettle. “That’s to be seen,” she said briskly. “Anyway, you’ll be perished here, Miss, and I don’t want another invalid on my hands. We’ll go in, if you please.”
Mary gave way. They turned to go in, but it was noticeable that as they moved towards the house each, stirred by the same thought, swept the extent of the park with eyes that clung to it, and were loth to leave it. Each hung for a moment, searching this alley or that, fancying a clue in some distant object, or taking a clump of gorse, or a jagged stump for the fallen man. All were harassed by the thought that they might be abandoning him; that in turning their backs on the bald, wintry landscape they might be carrying away with them his last chance.
“’T would take a day to search the park,” the keeper muttered. “And a dozen men, I’m afeared, to do it thoroughly.”
“Why not take a round yourself!” Mrs. Toft replied. “And if you find nothing be at the house in an hour, Petch, and we’ll know better what’s to do. The poor gentleman’s off his head, I doubt, and there’s no saying where he’d wander. But he can’t be far, and I’m beginning to think he’s in the house after all.”
The man agreed willingly, and strode away across the turf. The others entered the hall. Mary was for pausing there, but Mrs. Toft swept them all into the parlor where a good fire was burning. “You’ll excuse me, Miss,” she said, “but Toft will be the better for this,” and without ceremony she poured out a cup of coffee, jerked into it a little brandy from the decanter on the sideboard, and handed it to her husband. “Drink that,” she said, “and get your wits together, man! You’re no better than a wisp of paper now, and it’s only you can help us. Now think! You know him best. Where can he be? Did he say no word last night to give you a clue?”
A little color came back to Toft’s face. He sighed and passed his hand across his forehead. “If I’d never left him!” he said. “I never ought to have left him!”