He was pondering in this fashion when a gentle knock at the door aroused him from his reverie.

“Enter,” he gruffly and impatiently responded.

The door opened and Lettice entered.  Her face was suffused with tears.

“Well, Lettice,” he inquired in a somewhat gentler voice, “what is it, eh?”

“Is there any news of my mistress?” she tremblingly asked.

“None,” he replied, “would God there were.”

The maid curtsied and withdrew, but ere she had closed the door, the baron called her back.

“Lettice!” he cried.

She was in the room again in an instant.

“Is Sir Thomas Stanley here?” he asked.

“He is with Mistress Margaret, keeping watch in Sir Henry’s room,” she replied.

“Bid him attend me here, then,” he commanded.  Lettice closed the door again, and with a feeling of keen disappointment went off to discharge her mission.

Sir Thomas received the summons ungraciously, but feeling constrained to obey it, he bade the maid keep his betrothed company, and telling her not to let her eyes depart from De la Zouch he hastened to see Sir George.

When the good folk of Haddon awoke next morning, they were summoned to the Hall by the sound of the bell.  The news of Dorothy’s mysterious disappearance had quickly spread, and feeling sure that some announcement concerning her was about to be made, they quickly flocked into the courtyard curious to learn the latest tidings.

They were not disappointed.  Sir George repeated his offer of the previous day, increasing it upon the impulse of the moment to fifty nobles, and he at once despatched a number of his household to renew the search.

Meanwhile De la Zouch, to revenge himself upon the baron for his behaviour to him on the preceding afternoon, continued in a well-feigned semi-unconscious state, and throughout the day he declared himself too faint and dazed and altogether unfit to explain Dorothy’s absence.  Although besieged with inquiries from early morning, he remained obstinately deaf to all entreaties, nor was it until the evening that he professed himself able to understand their inquiries or returned intelligent answers to their questions.

“I was almost killed by that treacherous esquire,” he whined, as he began his explanation.

“Never mind that, tell us about Dorothy,” interrupted the baron.

“I am coming to that,” he replied.  “No sooner were we started than I began to suspect mischief.  I could see that Manners did not want me.”

“Very like,” interrupted Sir Thomas dryly.

De la Zouch felt hurt by the unfeeling remark, and he looked hurt, too, but Sir Thomas took no note of it, and the effort was futile.

“Why did you not come, Crowleigh?” he continued, changing the expression of his countenance from anger to agony, “then all would have been different.”

It would, indeed, but not as Sir Henry implied.