"I cannot find her," Margaret replied, addressing herself to Sir Thomas. "I have searched her rooms, but all in vain; and no one knows aught of her, no one has seen her."
"Said I not so?" furiously exclaimed Sir Edward. "She has gone; the bird has flown."
"What bird?" asked the baron, coming up.
"Dorothy, Sir George. Dorothy has fled."
"Fled; nay it cannot be," returned the baron, stoutly. He had too much faith in Dorothy to believe that.
"They are searching for her now," said Margaret. "Nobody knows where she is, and Sir Edward has missed her long. I cannot understand it."
"Her clothes are gone. Her riding habit has gone," exclaimed one of the domestics, rushing breathlessly up to the group. "Father Nicholas hath just come in and he says two horses, galloping, passed him on the Ashbourne road. One, he thinks might have been a lady, but it was too dark to see distinctly."
This she gasped out in jerks, but her news was intelligible enough, and it threw the whole assembly at once into a ferment of confusion, amid which could be heard the voice of Sir Edward Stanley exclaiming, in a tone far above the rest of the babel—"That was Dorothy."
"Gone!" exclaimed the baron, aghast. "Nay, search the Hall."
"Out; to your saddles, ye gallant knights," commanded Sir Thomas Stanley, promptly. "Here is a prize worth the capturing. She must be stopped!" and he quickly led the way to the stables, and in a very short space of time was mounted and urging his steed to the utmost along the Ashbourne road.