‘Emmiline had not the key of our boat,’ said Mr. Macrae, ’I have made sure of that; and not a man in the village would launch a boat on Sunday.’

‘We must go and help to search for them,’ said Merton; he only wished to be doing something, anything.

‘I shall not be a minute in changing my dress.’

Bude also volunteered, and in a few minutes, having drunk a glass of wine and eaten a crust of bread, they and Mr. Macrae were hurrying towards the cove.  The storm was passing; by the time when they reached the sea-side there were rifts of clear light in the sky above them.  They had walked rapidly and silently, the swollen stream roaring beneath them.  It had rained torrents in the hills.  There was nothing to be said, but the mind of each man was busy with the gloomiest conjectures.  These had to be far-fetched, for in a country so thinly peopled, and so honest and friendly, within a couple of miles at most from home, on a Sunday evening, what conceivable harm could befall a man and a maid?

‘Can we trust the man?’ was in Merton’s mind.  ’If they have been ferried across to the village, they would have set out to return before now,’ he said aloud; but there was no boat on the faint silver of the sea loch.  ’The cliffs are the likeliest place for an accident, if there was an accident,’ he considered, with a pang.  The cliffs might have tempted the light-footed girl.  In fancy he saw her huddled, a ghastly heap, the faint wind fluttering the folds of her dress, at the bottom of the rocks.  She had been wearing a long skirt, not her wont in the Highlands; it would be dangerous to climb in that; she might have forgotten, climbed, and caught her foot, and fallen.

‘Blake may have snatched at her, and been dragged down with her,’ Merton thought.  All the horrid fancies of keen anxiety flitted across his mind’s eye.  He paused, and made an effort over himself.  There must be some other harmless explanation, an adventure to laugh at—­for Blake and the girl.  Poor comfort, that!

The men who had been searching were scattered about the sides of the cove, and, distinguishing the new-comers, gathered towards them.

‘No,’ they said, ’they had found nothing except a little book that seemed to belong to Mr. Blake.’

It had been discovered near the place where Merton and Lady Bude were sitting on the previous evening.  When found it was lying open, face downwards.  In the faint light Merton could see that the book was full of manuscript poems, the lines all blotted and run together by the tropical rain.  He thrust it into the pocket of his ulster.

Merton took the most intelligent of the gillies aside.  ’Show me where you have searched,’ he said.  The man pointed to the shores of the cove; they had also examined the banks of the burn, and under all the trees, clearly fearing that the lost pair might have been lightning-struck, like the nymph and swain in Pope’s poem.  ‘You have not searched the cliffs?’ asked Merton.