I glanced in astonishment at the dazed and terrified girl, and then I saw what her aunt had seen—­a good-sized blood-stain halfway down the front of her skirt, and another smaller one on her right sleeve.  The girl herself looked down at the sinister patch of red and then up at her aunt.  “It looks like—­like blood,” she stammered.  “Yes, it is—­I think—­of course it is.  He struck his nose—­and it bled—­”

“Come,” interrupted Mrs. Haldean, “let us go,” and she rushed from the room, leaving me to follow.

I lifted Miss Haldean, who was half fainting with fatigue and agitation, on to the sofa, and, whispering a few words of encouragement into her ear, turned to Mrs. Hanshaw.

“I can’t stay with Mrs. Haldean,” I said.  “There are two visits to be made at Rebworth.  Will you send the dogcart up the road with somebody to take my place?”

“Yes,” she answered.  “I will send Giles, or come myself if Lucy is fit to be left.”

I ran to the stables for my bicycle, and as I pedalled out into the road I could see Mrs. Haldean already far ahead, driving her machine at frantic speed.  I followed at a rapid pace, but it was not until we approached the commencement of the wood, when she slowed down somewhat, that I overtook her.

“This is the place,” I said, as we reached the spot where I had parted from Miss Haldean.  We dismounted and wheeled our bicycles through the gate, and laying them down beside the hedge, crossed the meadow and entered the wood.

It was a terrible experience, and one that I shall never forget—­the white-faced, distracted woman, tramping in her flimsy house-shoes over the rough ground, bursting through the bushes, regardless of the thorny branches that dragged at skin and hair and dainty clothing, and sending forth from time to time a tremulous cry, so dreadfully pathetic in its mingling of terror and coaxing softness, that a lump rose in my throat, and I could barely keep my self-control.

“Freddy!  Freddy-boy!  Mummy’s here, darling!” The wailing cry sounded through the leafy solitude; but no answer came save the whirr of wings or the chatter of startled birds.  But even more shocking than that terrible cry—­more disturbing and eloquent with dreadful suggestion—­was the way in which she peered, furtively, but with fearful expectation, among the roots of the bushes, or halted to gaze upon every molehill and hummock, every depression or disturbance of the ground.

So we stumbled on for a while, with never a word spoken, until we came to a beaten track or footpath leading across the wood.  Here I paused to examine the footprints, of which several were visible in the soft earth, though none seemed very recent; but, proceeding a little way down the track, I perceived, crossing it, a set of fresh imprints, which I recognized at once as Miss Haldean’s.  She was wearing, as I knew, a pair of brown golf-boots, with rubber pads in the leather soles, and the prints made by them were unmistakable.