“No, Doctor Elliot,” replied Aaron.  He did not even chew.  He tied the horses, and followed James into the office, with his jaws stiff.  Gordon stood up when James entered, and looked past him for Clemency.  “She was not there?” he almost shouted.

“She left the Liptons at two o’clock, and I have stopped at every house on my way, and no one has seen her.”

“Oh, my God!” said Gordon, with a dazed look at James.

“What do you think?” asked James.

“I don’t know what to think.  I am utterly at a loss now.  I supposed she was entirely safe.  There are almost no tramps at this season, and in broad daylight.  At two, you said?  It is almost six.  I don’t know what to do.  What will come next?  I must tell Clara something before I do anything else.”

Gordon rushed out of the office, and they heard his heavy tread on the stairs.  Aaron stared at James, and still he did not chew.

“It’s almost dark,” he said with a low drawl.

“Yes.”

“We’ve got to take lanterns, and hunt along the road and fields.”

“Yes, we have.”

The dog, which had been asleep, got up, and came over to James, and laid his white head on his knee.  “We can take him,” Aaron said.  “Sometimes dogs have more sense than us.”

“That is so,” said James.  He felt himself in an agony of helplessness.  He simply did not know what to do.  He had sunk into a chair and his head fairly rung.  It seemed to him incredible that the girl had disappeared a second time.  A queer sense of unreality made him feel faint.

Gordon reentered the room.  “I have told Clara that you have come back, and that Clemency is to stay all night with Annie Lipton,” he said.  Then he, too, stood staring helplessly.  Emma had come into the room, and now she spoke angrily to the three dazed men.  “Git the lanterns lit, for goodness’ sake,” said she, “and hunt and do something.  I’m goin’ to git her supper, and I’ll keep her pacified.”  Emma gave a jerk with a sharp elbow toward Mrs. Ewing’s room.  “For goodness’ sake, if you don’t know yet where she has went, why don’t you do somethin’?” she demanded.  The men went before her sharp command like dust before her broom.  “Keep as still as you can,” ordered Emma as they went out. “She mustn’t, git to worryin’ before she comes home.”

[Illustration:  “Saw a little dark figure running toward him.”  Page 239.]

For the next two hours Gordon, James, and Aaron searched.  They walked, each going his separate way into the fields and woods on the road, having agreed upon a signal when the girl should be found.  The signal was to be a pistol shot.  James went first to the wood, where he had found Clemency on her former disappearance.  He searched in every shadow, throwing the gleam of his lantern into little dark nests of last year’s ferns, and hollows where last year’s leaves had swirled together to die, but no Clemency.  At last, wearied and heart-sick, he came out on the road.  The moon was just up, a full moon, and the road lay stretched before him like a silver ribbon covered with the hoar-frost.  He gazed down it hopelessly, and saw a little dark figure running toward him.  He was incredulous, but he called, “Clemency!”