“That is what my uncle tells me,” said the baronet.  “He declares that if I had attended to his stipulations, restrained my fervour, or kept my distance, there would have been neither suspicion nor alarm.  As if I had not restrained myself!”

“Ay, I dare say,” said the Major, a little amused.

“Well, sir, what could a man do with most bewitching creature in the world, his own wife, too, on the next chair to him?”

There was a simplicity about the stripling—­for he was hardly more—­ which forced them to forgive him; besides, they were touched by his paleness and fatigue.  His own man—­a respectable elderly servant whom the Major recollected waiting on Sir Jovian—­came to beg that his honour would sit up no longer, as he had been travelling since six in the morning, and was quite worn out.  Indeed, so it proved; for when the Major and Betty not only promised to come with him on the search the next day, but bade him a kind affectionate good-night, the poor lad, all unused to kindness, fairly burst into tears, which all his dawning manhood could not restrain.

CHAPTER XXVI.  THE TRACES.

    Oh, if I were an eagle to soar into the sky,
    I’d gaze around with piercing eye when I my love might spy.

The second-best coach, which resided at Bowstead, the same which had carried Aurelia off from Knightsbridge, had brought Sir Amyas Belamour to Carminster—­an effeminate proceeding of which he was rather ashamed, though clearly he could not have ridden, and he had hoped to have brought his bride back in it.

There was plenty of room in it to take back the Major, Betty, and even Eugene, since he could not well have been left without his sister or Palmer, who was indispensable to the Major.  He was so enchanted at “riding in a coach,” and going perhaps to see London, that he did not trouble himself much about sister Aurelia being lost, and was in such high spirits as to be best disposed of outside, between Palmer and Gray, where he could at his ease contemplate the horses, generally four in number, though at some stages only two could be procured, and then at an extra steep hill a farmer’s horse from the hayfield would be hitched on in front.  Luckily there was no lack of money; Mr. Belamour and Hargrave had taken care that Sir Amyas should be amply supplied, and thus the journey was as rapid as posting could be in those days of insufficient inns, worse roads, and necessary precautions against highwaymen.

The road was not the same as that which the young baronet had come down by, as it was thought better to take the chance of meeting a different stage waggon, Sir Amyas and his servant having, of course, examined the one they had overtaken in coming down.  At every possible resting place on the route was inquiry made, but all in vain; no one had seen such a young gentlewoman as was described, or if some answer inspired hope for a moment, it was dashed again at once.  The young gentlewoman once turned out to be the Squire’s fat lady, and another time was actually pursued into a troop of strolling players, attiring themselves in a barn, whence she came with cheeks freshly rouged with blood taken from a cat’s tail.