“The lane!” exclaimed Mr. Harper.  “The lead towards the waterfall was a feint.  It was in this direction she fled, and it is from this point that search must be made for her.”

Ransom, greatly perturbed, for this possibility of secret flight opened vistas of as much mystery, if not of as much suffering, as her death in the river, glanced at the sodden ground under their feet, and thus along the lane to where it lost itself from view among the trees.

“No possible following of steps here,” he declared.  “A hundred people must have come this way since early morning.”

“It’s a short cut from the Ferry.  They told me last night that it lessened the distance by fully a quarter of a mile.”

“The Ferry!  Can she be there?  Or in the woods, or on her way to some unknown place far out of our reach?  The thought is maddening, Mr. Harper, and I feel as helpless as a child under it.  Shall we get detectives from the county-seat, or start on the hunt ourselves?  We might hear something further on to help us.”

“We might; but I should rather stay on the immediate scene at present.  Ah, there comes a fellow in a cart who should be able to tell us something!  Stand by and I’ll accost him.  You needn’t show your face.”

Mr. Ransom turned aside.  Mr. Harper waited till the slow-moving horse, dragging a heavily jogging wagon, came alongside, and he had caught the eye of the low-browed, broad-faced farmer boy who sat on a bag of potatoes and held the reins.

“Good morning,” said he.  “Bad news this way.  Any better at the Ferry, or down east, as you call it?”

“Eh?” was the lumbering, half-suspicious answer from the startled boy.  “I’ve heard naught down yonder, but that a gal threw herself over the waterfall up here last night.  Is that a fact, sir?  I’m mighty curus to know.  My mother knew them Hazens; used to wash for ’em years ago.  She told me to bring up these taters and larn all I could about it.”

“We don’t know much more than that ourselves,” was the smooth and cautious reply.  “The lady certainly is missing, and she is supposed to have drowned herself.”  Then, as he noted the fellow’s eyes resting with some curiosity on Mr. Ransom’s well-clad, gentlemanly figure, added gravely, and with a slight gesture towards the latter: 

“The lady’s husband.”

The lad’s jaw fell and he looked very sheepish.

“Excuse me, misters, I didn’t know,” he managed to mutter, with a slash at his horse which was vainly endeavoring to pull the cart from the rut in which it had stuck.  “I guess I’ll go along to the hotel.  I’ve a bag of taters for Mrs. Deo.”

But the cart didn’t budge and the lawyer had time to say: 

“Guess you didn’t hear anything said about another lady I am interested in.  No talk down your way of a strange young woman seen anywhere on the highway or about any of the houses between here and the Landing?”