Mr. Rogers stood awhile in perplexity, and then turned to try his fortune at the Hall. But there the constable could tell him nothing that he did not know already, and he began to despair of finding any further trace of the fugitive. He ran over in his mind the places Dick had mentioned. It seemed mere folly to hope to hear of her at Hunstanton. But at the thought of Hunstanton the remembrance of Harrison's description of the good-natured landlady at the Royal Oak suddenly flashed on him. It was just possible that the girl might have fled there, and thrown herself on the protection of the only person who seemed to have had a kind word for her in her extremity. He turned his weary horse, and trotted forward to Hunstanton. The great door of the inn stood hospitably open, but the usual air of joviality seemed to have forsaken the place. The stable-man stood idly by the horse-trough, gossiping with two scared-looking maids, and a knot of boys stared up at the windows of the great house as if they expected to see some strange sight to appear. The maids fled as the visitor drew rein at the door. "Is there trouble in the house, friend?" asked Mr. Rogers, as he dismounted. The hostler shook his head solemnly. "'Tain't for me to say if it be trouble, nor what it be. The less I says the better, if missus be in hearing; but here her comes, and her'll do all the talking, I reckon." Mistress Joyce's voice indeed went before her as she bustled from the back regions to receive her guest, and if her face was somewhat pale and her cap was awry, her hospitality was as ready, and her tongue as voluble as ever. The newcomer could but partly state his errand when she launched forth-- "Desire news of Mistress Perrient, sir? Ay, dear, dear, dear! Poor, sweet young gentlewoman! Pray, sir, come in, and take a chair in my parlour. I am rare glad to see any one who is a friend to our young lady. John hostler, take the gentleman's nag. All the way from Lynn! You do fare to be wholly weary, and your nag, too. Mistress Perrient! Why, sir, I have known her since she was that high. My husband held one of Sir Gyles' farms when first we came into this country. A sweet young gentlewoman she always has been, and a Perrient from top to toe. They be all as proud as proud. Old Sir Gyles, now, he was like as it were a king in the county. But to think of the constables making bold to lock our young lady up. No wonder the spirit of her couldn't brook it!" "But what did she do, good dame; how could she not brook it? Where is she now? Do you know aught of her?"