"You can't stay here by yourself," he said.

"I can't go back to town and leave Flora here by herself. We've got to find her!"

He nodded; they were both of them entirely at ease. That tense consciousness of a few minutes before had disappeared.

"I'm worried," Fred said, again; "she was awfully low-spirited because—because somebody hadn't written to her."

"Oh, she's all right. She'll be back in a few minutes."

"But where has she gone?"

"Perhaps she walked into Laketon."

"What for? Besides, it's nearly five miles!" They were standing in the kitchen doorway; Zip pushed past them and went out into the mist; smelled about, stretching first his front legs, then his hind legs. The motor loomed like a black monster under the tree. Zip gave a bored look at the lingering guest.

"Flor-a-a!"

No answer; just the lake, sighing and rippling in the sedge.

"Could she have gone down to the water?" Howard[Pg 210] said; "have you got such a thing as a lantern? I'll go out and look."

"No; but light that lamp on the center-table—a candle might blow out."

He went into the other room, and she heard him scratch a match and fumble with the lamp-chimney. In that minute, alone, listening all the while for Flora's returning step, her mind leaped back to that moment in front of the fire. His look—astounded, incredulous, shocked—was burned into her memory; his distressed words rung in her ears. She was not conscious of any pain because he did not love her. She was simply stunned by the jolt of suddenly and unexpectedly stepping down into the old, irrational modesties....

Her face began to scorch. She went out on the porch and called again, mechanically; some water dripping from the eaves on her bare head ran down one blazing cheek; the coolness gave her an acute sense of relief that struggled through the medley of tearing emotions; she was saying to herself: "Where can she be? She hasn't washed the dishes! (He refused me.)"

Howard, holding the lamp over his head, came up behind her and went down the steps into the mist. Fred followed him, Zip lumbering along at her heels.

"She must have left the house this way; we know that," she said.

"Come down to the beach," he said.

"Yes; sometimes she used to sit on that big rock," Frederica remembered.

He walked ahead of her; the light, shining through the[Pg 211] solferino lamp-shade, made a rosy nimbus about his bare head, but scarcely penetrated the fog. They went thus, all three, single file, along the path to the rickety wooden pier; at the end of it, they stood staring out into the mist. Twice he called, loudly, "Flora!"...

"Not a sound!" he said. "Is there any possible place in the house where she could have hidden herself? I mean, gone to sleep, or anything?"

"Not a place! I've looked everywhere. (He refused me.)"

They turned silently to go back. Just as they reached the path again Howard stopped—so abruptly that the lamp sent a jarring gleam into the white darkness.

"Fred—?"

She looked where he was looking, and caught her breath.

"No!" she said; "oh, no—no! It can't be!"

"Hold the lamp. I'll go and see—"

He climbed down the little bluff and waded into the sedge. The swaying mass that had looked like a stone until a larger wave stirred it, came in nearer the shore, caught on the shoaling beach, rolled, and was still. Frederica saw him bend over it, then try, frantically, to lift it in his arms. She put the lamp on the wharf. ("Don't touch it, Zip!"), slid, catching at tufts of grass, and bending branches—down the crumbling bank, plunged into the water up to her knees, and together, half pulling, half............