"Do you know where he went to, sir?"
"No; I do not. He is all right, depend upon it, Aaron; he'll be turning up one of these fine days."
"All the same, he might have writ to me just a line," contended the old man.
Miss Winter was nearly as anxious as Aaron for the return of Hubert. She had determined to question him further upon that strange assertion he had made--that she had no right to Heron Dyke--and to insist upon a full and explicit answer. A thought crossed her mind sometimes that possibly Hubert might be fearing this very questioning, and was staying away in consequence.
And the time again rolled on. Three weeks came and went, and Hubert Stone remained to them all as one dead.
"He does not return, Miss Ella," cried Aaron to his mistress one morning; and there was a worn, pitiful look on his face that she had never seen before. "Dorothy's fretting frightfully: she will have it, something dreadful has happened to him, and that we shall never set eyes on him again."
Involuntarily there came into Ella's memory what Dorothy had told her about the dread apparition seen by her that midnight in the shrubbery. She herself had no faith in such superstitious fancies, but she could quite understand the hold they would have over the mind of a woman like Dorothy Stone.
"It is strange," she replied, "I grant that; and, as you say, he might have written. Still, had any harm befallen him you would surely have heard of it from one source or another. I have felt no fear since I heard the report of Dr. Jago."
"But he stays so long, ma'am."
"We can only go on hoping for the best. Young men have sometimes strange fancies for roving, and they do not always think of those to whom their absence or silence may cause grief."