So it was agreed, and Tom drove away.

It was a terrible disappointment to Emily and her mother that Bob did not come, but Bessie’s visit served to mitigate it to some extent, and her presence brightened the cabin very much.

No one knew whether or not Bob’s failure to appear was regretted by Bessie.  That was her secret.  However it may have been, she had a splendid visit with Mrs. Gray and Emily, and the days rolled by very pleasantly, and when Richard Gray left for his trail again on the Monday morning following her arrival the thought that Bessie was with “th’ little maid” gave him a sense of quiet satisfaction and security that he had not felt when he was away from them earlier in the winter.

When Douglas Campbell came over one morning a week after Bessie’s arrival he found the atmosphere of gloom that he had noticed on his earlier visits had quite disappeared.  Mrs. Gray seemed contented now, and Emily was as happy as could be.

Douglas remained to have dinner with them.  They had just finished eating and he had settled back to have a smoke before going home, admiring a new dress that Bessie had made for Emily’s doll, and talking to the child, while Mrs. Gray and Bessie cleared away the dishes, when the door opened and Ed Matheson appeared on the threshold.

Ed stood in the open door speechless, his face haggard and drawn, and his tall thin form bent slightly forward like a man carrying a heavy burden upon his shoulders.

It was not necessary for Ed to speak.  The moment Mrs. Gray saw him she knew that he was the bearer of evil news.  She tottered as though she would fall, then recovering herself she extended her arms towards him and cried in agony: 

“Oh, my lad!  My lad!  What has happened to my lad!”

“Bob—­Bob”—­faltered Ed, “th’—­wolves—­got—­un.”

He had nerved himself for this moment, and now the spell was broken he sat down upon a bench, and with his elbows upon his knees and his face in his big weather-browned hands, cried like a child.

Emily lay white and wild-eyed.  She could not realize it all or understand it.  It seemed for a moment as though Mrs. Gray would faint, and Bessie, pale but self-possessed, supported her to a seat and tried gently to soothe her.

Douglas, too, did what he could to comfort, though there was little that he could do or say to relieve the mother’s grief.

At first Mrs. Gray simply moaned, “My lad—­my lad—­my lad——­” upbraiding herself for ever letting him go away from home; but finally tears—­the blessed safety-valve of grief—­came and washed away the first effects of the shock.

Then she became quite calm, and insisted upon hearing every smallest detail of Ed’s story, and he related what had happened step by step, beginning with the arrival of himself and Dick at the river tilt on Christmas eve and the discovery that Bob’s furs had been removed, and passed on to the finding of the remains by the big boulder in the marsh, Mrs. Gray interrupting now and again to ask a fuller explanation here and there.