“Have you seen Lucy?” the former inquired.

“No,” I answered.  “Hasn’t she come back?  I expected to find her here.  She had left the wood when I passed just now.”

Mrs. Haldean knitted her brows anxiously.  “It is very strange,” she said, “and very thoughtless of her.  Freddy will be famished.”

I hurried over my lunch, for two fresh messages had come in from outlying hamlets, effectually dispelling my visions of a quiet afternoon; and as the minutes passed without bringing any signs of the absentees, Mrs. Haldean became more and more restless and anxious.  At length her suspense became unbearable; she rose suddenly, announcing her intention of cycling up the road to look for the defaulters, but as she was moving towards the door, it burst open, and Lucy Haldean staggered into the room.

Her appearance filled us with alarm.  She was deadly pale, breathless, and wild-eyed; her dress was draggled and torn, and she trembled from head to foot.

“Good God, Lucy!” gasped Mrs. Haldean.  “What has happened?  And where is Freddy?” she added in a sterner tone.

“He is lost!” replied Miss Haldean in a faint voice, and with a catch in her breath.  “He strayed away while I was painting.  I have searched the wood through, and called to him, and looked in all the meadows.  Oh! where can he have gone?” Her sketching “kit,” with which she was loaded, slipped from her grasp and rattled on to the floor, and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed hysterically.

“And you have dared to come back without him?” exclaimed Mrs. Haldean.

“I was getting exhausted.  I came back for help,” was the faint reply.

“Of course she was exhausted,” said Mrs. Hanshaw.  “Come, Lucy:  come, Mabel; don’t make mountains out of molehills.  The little man is safe enough.  We shall find him presently, or he will come home by himself.  Come and have some food, Lucy.”

Miss Haldean shook her head.  “I can’t, Mrs. Hanshaw—­really I can’t,” she said; and, seeing that she was in a state of utter exhaustion, I poured out a glass of wine and made her drink it.

Mrs. Haldean darted from the room, and returned immediately, putting on her hat.  “You have got to come with me and show me whore you lost him,” she said.

“She can’t do that, you know,” I said rather brusquely.  “She will have to lie down for the present.  But I know the place, and will cycle up with you.”

“Very well,” replied Mrs. Haldean, “that will do.  What time was it,” she asked, turning to her niece, “when you lost the child? and which way—­”

She paused abruptly, and I looked at her in surprise.  She had suddenly turned ashen and ghastly; her face had set like a mask of stone, with parted lips and staring eyes that were fixed in horror on her niece.

There was a deathly silence for a few seconds.  Then, in a terrible voice, she demanded:  “What is that on your dress, Lucy?” And, after a pause, her voice rose into a shriek.  “What have you done to my boy?”