“Have you seen Zenobia,” said I, “since you parted from her at Eliot’s pulpit?”

“No,” answered Hollingsworth; “nor did I expect it.”

His voice was deep, but had a tremor in it,

Hardly had he spoken, when Silas Foster thrust his head, done up in a cotton handkerchief, out of another window, and took what he called as it literally was—­a squint at us.

“Well, folks, what are ye about here?” he demanded.  “Aha! are you there, Miles Coverdale?  You have been turning night into day since you left us, I reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come prowling about the house at this time o’ night, frightening my old woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out of his best nap.  In with you, you vagabond, and to bed!”

“Dress yourself quickly, Foster,” said I.  “We want your assistance.”

I could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone out of my voice.  Silas Foster, obtuse as were his sensibilities, seemed to feel the ghastly earnestness that was conveyed in it as well as Hollingsworth did.  He immediately withdrew his head, and I heard him yawning, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily, while he hurried on his clothes.  Meanwhile I showed Hollingsworth a delicate handkerchief, marked with a well-known cipher, and told where I had found it, and other circumstances, which had filled me with a suspicion so terrible that I left him, if he dared, to shape it out for himself.  By the time my brief explanation was finished, we were joined by Silas Foster in his blue woollen frock.

“Well, boys,” cried he peevishly, “what is to pay now?”

“Tell him, Hollingsworth,” said I.

Hollingsworth shivered perceptibly, and drew in a hard breath betwixt his teeth.  He steadied himself, however, and, looking the matter more firmly in the face than I had done, explained to Foster my suspicions, and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which, in spite of my utmost efforts, my words had swerved aside.  The tough-nerved yeoman, in his comment, put a finish on the business, and brought out the hideous idea in its full terror, as if he were removing the napkin from the face of a corpse.

“And so you think she’s drowned herself?” he cried.  I turned away my face.

“What on earth should the young woman do that for?” exclaimed Silas, his eyes half out of his head with mere surprise.  “Why, she has more means than she can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make her comfortable, but a husband, and that’s an article she could have, any day.  There’s some mistake about this, I tell you!”

“Come,” said I, shuddering; “let us go and ascertain the truth.”

“Well, well,” answered Silas Foster; “just as you say.  We’ll take the long pole, with the hook at the end, that serves to get the bucket out of the draw-well when the rope is broken.  With that, and a couple of long-handled hay-rakes, I’ll answer for finding her, if she’s anywhere to be found.  Strange enough!  Zenobia drown herself!  No, no; I don’t believe it.  She had too much sense, and too much means, and enjoyed life a great deal too well.”