“God save us!”
“He’s taken his silver flask too,” Etruria said in a low voice. She was examining the dressing-table. “And his watch.”
“His watch?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“But that’s odd,” Mary said, fixing her eyes on Toft. “Don’t you think that’s odd? If my uncle had rambled out in some nightmare or—or wandering, would he have taken his flask and his watch, Toft? Are his spectacles there?”
Toft inspected the table, raised the pillow, felt under the bolster. “No, Miss,” he said; “he’s taken them.”
“Ah!” Mary replied; “then I have hope. Wherever he is, he is in his senses. Now, Toft!”—she looked hard at the man—“think again! Surely since he had this in his mind last night he must have let something drop? Some word?”
The man shook his head. “Not that I heard, Miss,” he said.
Mary sighed. But Mrs. Toft was less patient. She exploded. “You gaby!” she cried. “Where’s your senses? It’s to you we’re looking, and a poor stick you are in time of trouble! I couldn’t have believed it! Find your tongue, Toft, say something! You knew the Master down to his shoe leather. Let’s hear what you do think! He couldn’t walk far! He couldn’t walk a mile without help. Where is he? Where do you think he is?”
Toft’s answer silenced them. If one of the mute, staring figures on the walls—that watched as from the boxes of a theatre the living actors—had stepped down, it would hardly have affected them more deeply. The man sat down on the bed, covered his face with his hands, and rocking himself to and fro broke into a passion of weeping. “The poor Master!” he cried between his sobs. “The poor Master!”