Guyder Touchett shrugged his shoulders. "Anything you like. When the ale is in the eye there are stranger things than gray cats to be discovered at the half-dawn. In my opinion, Garth is a fool and a liar."
"And, as usual, your opinion is wrong," retorted Constans, "for the Gray Men are really here. But I cannot wait; I must speak with Sir Gavan himself."
"You will find him at the water gate," bawled Touchett, as the boy ran past him.
Constans sped rapidly up the green slope leading to the house a quarter of a mile away. As he ran, he mentally rehearsed the story of his late adventure. Surely, now, Sir Gavan would permit him to bear a man's part in the impending crisis. Had he not already drawn hostile blood—the first?
Sir Gavan awaited his son at the water gate, his ruddy countenance streaked with an unwonted pallor and his gray eyes dark with trouble.
"Where is your sister?" he asked, abruptly, as Constans ran up.
The boy stared. "She did not go out with me, sir. Do you mean that Issa——"
"Hush! or your mother will overhear. Come this way." And Sir Gavan preceded his son into the guard-room on the left of the vaulted entrance, walking heavily, as one who bears an unaccustomed burden upon his shoulders. Yet when he spoke again his voice had its accustomed steadiness.
"No one has seen her since ten of the sundial. It is now noon, and the alarm-bell has been ringing this half-hour."
Constans felt something tighten at his own throat. "You have searched the enclosure?" he faltered.