f her
few acquaintances if they could help her. So she turned away and
started off again in the rain, quite forgetting now that she was
tired, and hungry, and wet.

It was dark by the time she reached the village shop. Her friend who
kept it had not seen the children since yesterday, when she gave them
a piece of pudding. There was nothing for it but to tramp home, in
the hope that they had returned.

But only disappointment awaited her. They were not there. Then she
went up into their little rooms, and found that they had worn their
best clothes, and had taken all their pennies out of their
money-boxes. For the first time then the dreadful suspicion entered
her head that they had run away.

But for what purpose? That was what she could not make out. The only
thing that occurred to her was that they might have wanted to go and
see the market, and spend their money--that they had walked there,
and perhaps--who could tell?--lost their way.

The more she thought of it, the more she felt sure that this could be
the only solution to the mystery.

It was a certain amount of comfort to have some definite idea to go
to work upon, but even then there were so many possibilities of
danger that the poor woman shuddered as she thought of it.

Well, there was nothing to be done but to start off again. It was now
quite dark, and pouring with rain. Mrs. McDougall was already very
wet, but she never gave it a thought. She walked briskly along the
road leading in the opposite direction from the one to Dunster. Every
now and then she stopped and listened intently, peering among the
trees that skirted the road or across the expanse of moor. She only
met one person, an old woman, trudging along in the rain, and at last
she had arrived at the town she had left only a few hours before,
which lay ten miles distant from her own cottage.

Only to find fresh disappointment. No one could give her the least
information. They had not been seen in the place, so far as she could
learn, and so there was nothing to be done but to tramp back again
all that weary ten miles.

Yes, one thing. It seemed a dreadful step, but it must be done. She
was face to face with the fact that the children were lost, and the
chance of finding them that night was now small indeed. With a few
inquiries she found her way to the police-station, and there she told
her story--told it with a grim soberness on her face that might have
passed for unconcern with those st