ay that Mr Syme was close behind.

This decided the doctor to pause for a few minutes, and while it was
still twilight the rector with Gilmore and Distin came up, the former
apologising for being so late.

"I'm afraid that I fell asleep in my chair, Lee," he whispered. "I'm
very sorry."

"There is no need to say anything," said the doctor sadly. "It is
hardly daybreak even now."

Gilmore looked haggard, and his face on one side was marked by the
leather of the chair in which he had been asleep. Macey looked red-eyed
too, but Distin was perfectly calm and as neat as if he had been to bed
as usual to enjoy an uninterrupted night's rest.

When the start was made, it having been decided to follow the same
course as over-night, hardly a word was said, for in addition to the
depression caused by the object in view, the morning felt chilly, and
everything looked grim and strange in the mist.

The rector and doctor led the way with the churchwarden, then followed
the rector's three pupils, and after them the servants and townspeople
in silence.

Macey was the first of the rectory trio to speak, and he harked back to
the idea that Vane must be caught in the brambles just as he had been
when trying to make a short cut, but Gilmore scouted the notion at once.

"Impossible!" he said, "Vane wouldn't be so stupid. If he is lost on
the moor it is because he slipped into one of those black bog holes, got
tangled in the water-weeds and couldn't get out."

"Ugh!" exclaimed Macey with a shudder. "Oh, I say: don't talk like
that. It's too horrid. You don't think so, do you, Distie? Why it has
made you as white as wax to hear him talk like that."

Distin shivered as if he were cold, and he forced a smile as he said
hastily:--

"No: of course I don't. It's absurd."

"What is?" said Gilmore.

"Your talking like this. It isn't likely. I think it's a great piece
of nonsense, this searching the country."

"Why, what would you do?" cried Macey.

"I--I--I don't know," cried Distin, who was taken aback. "Yes, I do. I
should drive over to the station to see if he took a ticket for London,
or Sheffield, or Birmingham, or somewhere. It's just like him. He has
gone to buy screws, or something, to make a whim-wham to wind up the
sun."

"No, he hasn't," said Macey sturdily; "he wouldn't go and upset the
people at home like that; he's too fond of them."

"Pish!" ejaculated Distin contemptuously.

"Distie's sour becau