Meanwhile Dame Bell was pursuing her search. But she found that she could not do more than the miners had done towards discovering her husband. Into this house, out of that one, inquiring here, seeking there, went she, but all to no purpose. She was not uneasy, only exasperated: and she gave Mr. Blase Pellet a sharp reprimand upon his venturing to hint that there might exist cause for uneasiness. The reprimand occurred as she was returning towards home. After her unsuccessful search, she was walking back down the street of Trennach in a state of much inward wonder as to where Bell could be hiding, and had nearly reached Dr. Raynor's, when she saw Float the druggist standing at his shop-door, and crossed over to enlarge upon the mystery to him. Mr. Blase Pellet came forward, as a matter of course, from his place behind the book-counter to assist at the conference. "Bell is safe to turn up soon," remarked the druggist, who was a peaceable man, after listening to Mrs. Bell for a few minutes in silence. "Turn up! of course he will turn up," replied the dame. "What's to hinder it? And he will have such a dressing from me that I don't think he'll be for hiding himself again in a hurry." Upon that, Blase Pellet, partially sheltered behind the burly form of the druggist, spoke. "Suppose he never does turn up? Suppose he is dead?--or something of that kind." The suggestion angered Mrs. Bell. "Are you a heathen, Blase Pellet, to invent such a thought as that?" she demanded in wrath. "What do you suppose Bell's likely to die from?--and where?" Leaving Mr. Pellet to repent of his rashness, she marched over to Dr. Raynor's for the composing draught promised for Rosaline. And when Mrs. Bell went home with it she fully expected that by that time the truant would have made his appearance there. But he had not done so. Rosaline had prepared the tea and toast, according to orders, but no Bell was there to partake of it. Nancy Tomson shared it instead. All the rest of the evening Dame Bell was looking out for him; and exchanging suggestions with her neighbours, who kept dropping in. Rosaline scarcely spoke: not at all unless she was spoken to. The same cold, white hue sat on her face, the same involuntary shiver at times momentarily shook her frame. The gossips gazed at her curiously--as a specimen of the fright those dreaded Whistlers had power to inflict. They sat up again half the night, waiting for Bell, but waiting in vain; and then they went to rest. Mrs. Bell did not sleep as well as usual: she was disturbed with doubts as to where he could be, and by repeated fancyings that she heard his step outside. Once she got up, opened the casement, and looked out; but there was nothing to be seen; nothing except the great Bare Plain lying bleak and silent in the silver moonlight. CHAPTER VI. DINING AT THE MOUNT.