Cara told at once what she knew; how he had heard that Agnes was going somewhere, she did not remember where, and that he had made up his mind to go too, and explain himself. ‘Limpet Bay; she is not there,’ said Mr. Burchell. He took no interest in the rest of the story, which excited the others so much, that half of them spoke together. Edward, however, had the _pas_ as being most energetic. ‘I will go at once to Limpet Bay,’ he said, ‘and find out if anything is known of them; that seems the best thing.’ Mr. Burchell looked at him with a half-suspicion in his eyes. But this was how it was finally arranged. The Rector himself seemed to have greater confidence in wandering about town. He was going now to his sister’s at Notting Hill, and then to the House. Then he would come back again to the Square, to see if any news had come. ‘My son Roger will be in London in an hour or two,’ he added, with a kind of vague trust in that. But he neither sanctioned nor objected to Edward’s mission. He had no notion himself what to do. He had no faith in his own child, and even thought worse of Mrs. Meredith--if there could be a worse or a better about such a person--for thinking well of hers. When he went away at last in his heavy distress they were all relieved. He was to come back in a few hours to see if any news had been received. As for Edward, he was like a man transformed. He ran upstairs with airy energy, thrust what he wanted into a bag, tossed a heap of notebooks on the floor (where his mother found them, and picking them up carefully, put them away behind his bureau where he could not find them), and came down again swiftly and lightly, ready for anything. Then it was arranged that Cara and her father should walk with him to the House to see if anything had been heard there. This new chapter of anxiety was a relief to all of them, strange as it may seem to say so. Even Mrs. Meredith was comforted, after all the personal excitement of the afternoon, to have this outlet to her emotion. She was not afraid that anything very dreadful could have happened to Oswald, nor, though Mr. Burchell thought her confidence wicked, to anyone else, through her boy. She knew Oswald’s faults, she said to herself--who better? but Agnes would get no harm from him. On the other hand, the fact that they had disappeared together was in itself active harm. The boy was safe enough, but the girl--that was a more difficult matter; and even a young man who decoyed away, or could be said to have decoyed away, not a poor milliner or housemaid, but a girl in his own rank--society would look but darkly, there could be no doubt, on such a man. It was evident that in any point of view to find Oswald was the chief thing to be thought of. In the meantime, however, they had been reckoning without their train. There was not one going to Limpet Bay till six o’clock, and a pause perforce had to be made. And people began to come in, to call in the midst of