One of the nurses said she was gone home.

Another said the patient had told her she should go down to the works first.

“And that is the very last place you should have let her go to,” said the doctor.  “A fine shock the poor creature will get there.  You want her back here again, I suppose!” He felt uneasy, and drove down to the works.  There he made some inquiries among the women, and elicited that Jael Dence had turned faint at sight of the place, and they had shown her, at her request, where she had been picked up, and had told her about the discovery of Little’s remains, and she had persuaded a little girl to go to the town hall with her.

“Oh, the tongue! the tongue!” groaned Amboyne.

He asked to see the little girl, and she came forward of her own accord, and told him she had gone to the town hall with the lass, “but” (regretfully) “that the man would not show them it without an order from the Mayor.”

“It!”

Dr. Amboyne said he was very glad that common sense had not quite deserted the earth.  “And where did you go next?”

“I came back here.”

“So I see; but the lass?”

“She said she should go home.  ‘My dear,’ says she, ’there’s nobody left me here; I’ll go and die among my own folk.’  That was her word.”

“Poor thing! poor thing!  Why—­”

He stopped short, for that moment he remembered Raby had said old Dence was dead, and Patty gone to Australia.  If so, here was another blow in store for poor Jael, and she weakened by a long illness.

He instantly resolved to drive after her, and see whether she was really in a fit state to encounter so many terrible shocks.  If not, he should take her back to the infirmary, or into his own house; for he had a great respect for her, and indeed for all her family.

He drove fast, but he could see nothing of her on the road.  So then he went on to Cairnhope.

He stopped at the farm-house.  It was sadly deteriorated in appearance.  Inside he found only an old carter and his daughter.  The place was in their charge.

The old man told him apathetically Jael had come home two hours ago and asked for her father and Patty, and they had told her the old farmer was dead and buried, and Patty gone to foreign parts.

“What, you blurted it out like that!  You couldn’t put yourself in that poor creature’s place, and think what a blow it would be?  How, in Heaven’s name, did she take it?”

“Well, sir, she stared a bit, and looked stupid-like; and then she sat down.  She sat crowded all together like in yon corner best part of an hour, and then she got up and said she must go and see his grave.”

“You hadn’t the sense to make her eat, of course?”

“My girl here set meat afore her, but she couldn’t taste it.”

Dr. Amboyne drove to Raby Hall and told Raby.  Raby said he would have Jael up to the hall.  It would be a better place for her now than the farm.  He ordered a room to be got ready for her, and a large fire lighted, and at the same time ordered the best bedroom for Dr. Amboyne.  “You must dine and sleep here,” said he, “and talk of old times.”