"Tomson!" she called out. "Tomson!" The man heard and looked up, his face leaden and his eyes red and inflamed. Last night's potations were not yet slept off. "What was the reason my husband did not come home?" Tomson took a few moments to digest the question. Apparently his recollection on the point did not quickly serve him. "I doan't know," said he. "Didn't Bell come hoam?" "No, he didn't." "Baan't he come hoam?" "No, he has not come. And I think it was a very unfriendly thing of the rest of you not to bring him. You had to come yourselves. Did you leave him at the Golden Shaft?" "Bell warn't at tha Golden Shaaft," said Tomson. "Now don't you tell me any of your untruths, Ben Tomson," returned the dame. "Not at the Golden Shaft! Where else was he?" "I'll take my davy Bell were not weth us at tha Golden Shaaft last evening!" said the man. "He cleared out at dusk." "But he went back to it later." "He never did--not as I saw," persisted Tomson; who was always obstinate in maintaining his own opinion. "Was Andrew Float there?" asked Mrs. Bell. "Andrew Float? Yes, Float was there." "Then I know Bell was there too. And don't you talk any more nonsense about it, Ben Tomson. Bell was too bad to get home by himself, and none of you chose to help him home; perhaps you were too bad yourselves to do it. And there he has stayed till now; either at the Golden Shaft, or with Float the miner: and you'd very much oblige me, Tomson, if you'd hunt him up." She shut the casement, watched Tomson start on his way to Trennach, and, presently, went down to breakfast. Rosaline was getting it ready as usual, looking more dead than alive. "We'll wait a bit, Rose, to see whether your father comes. Don't put the tea in yet." Rose was kneeling before the fire at the moment. She turned at the words, a wild look in her eyes, and seemed about to say something; but checked herself. Half-an-hour passed: Dame Bell growing more angry each minute, and rehearsing a sharper reception for Bell in her mind. At last they sat down to breakfast. Rose could not eat; she seemed ill: but her mother, taken up with the ill-doings of the truant, did not observe her as much as she would otherwise have done. Breakfast was at an end, although Mrs. Bell had lingered over it, when Tomson returned; and with him appeared the tall ungainly form of Float the miner. "Well?" cried the dame, rising briskly from her chair in expectation, as Tomson raised the latch of the door. "Well, 'tis as I said," said Tomson. "Bell didn't come back to the Golden Shaaft last night after he cleared out just afore dark. He ain't nowheres about as we can see." Mrs. Bell looked from one to the other: at Tomson's rather sullen countenance, at Float's good-natured one. She might have thought the men were deceiving her, but she could see no motive for their doing so. Unless, indeed, Bell was lying somewhere in Trennach, so ill after his bout that they did not like to tell her.