hink you may trust Gladys;
that letter is sincere if ever anything was.'

'Who is to search, for there is no time to lose?' asked Miss Gwynne.

She was the only person in Wales who would have moved Mr Prothero, but
he never could refuse her anything.

'What you say, Miss, is seure to have sense in it. I never knew you take
to any one yet who wasn't worth something, so I'll just ride myself and
look after 'em both. I shouldn't like people to fancy we were in a fuss
and fright. But remember, Miss Gwynne, it is to oblige you; and if I
find that she has run away with my son--'

'You may do what you like, Mr Prothero, for then I will have nothing to
say to her. But go at once, and thank you very much.'

'I'll go Swansea way, for I am sure they'll take to the sea. Ach a fi!
what's gone to the young people.'

In less than a quarter of a hour Mr Prothero had mounted his best mare,
and muttering a great many Welsh oaths, was soon riding in search of the
fugitives. When he got out of his own immediate neighbourhood, he began
to ask whether 'a tall, dark, young man, and a tall, pale, young 'ooman'
had been seen.

'Is it a couple of gipsies, Mr Prothero?' asked a farmer, who lived
about seven miles from Glanyravon. 'I did see a dark man, and a sallow
'ooman go up the lane by now.'

'Was the man like my son Owen?'

'Well, I didn't be seeing his face, but I shouldn't wonder.'

Up the lane Mr Prothero went for a good half mile, and at last reached a
gipsy encampment, where there were plenty of dark men, and sallow women,
but not Owen and Gladys.

A shrewd old gipsy, seeing him evidently on the search for some one,
assured him before he had asked any questions, that she had seen those
whom he was looking for.

'Where?' asked the farmer.

'Cross my hand with a silver coin, and I'll tell ye,' she said.

He gave her a shilling.

'Young couple, my lord?' asked the woman.

Mr Prothero nodded assent.

'Dark and fair, yer honour?'

Another nod.

'I never tell secrets under a half-a-crown, but I have seen them, sir.
Young man something like you, and handsome.'

'Make haste and tell, you cheat and vagabond,' said Mr Prothero,
throwing her eighteenpence.

'Up the first turning to the right, off the road, over the hill,' said
the woman.

'When?'

'An hour ago.'

Mr Prothero rode quickly down the lane, along the turnpike, up the first
turning to the right, and then up a long and tedious hill.

It will be unnecess