“I will go as I am,” she said, “though after all I may be alarming myself unnecessarily.” She was not the woman to treat the situation hysterically if it could possibly be avoided. I was genuinely sorry for the grief that was coming upon her. I would have spared her if possible, but I either had to abandon the object of my life or to put up with such unpleasantnesses as were involved with the course I had laid out for myself. We started to walk rapidly towards the inn. “I dare say Harry missed his stirrup and Jenny bolted.” On the way her spirits rose. The fact that we met no one seemed to her a proof that nothing much was the matter. Sounds of drunken revelry reached us long before the inn came in sight. “I will wait here,” she said, as we reached the broadening of the road. I left her and went on. “We’ll all be merry, Drinking whisky, wine, and sherry, If he can’t come, we’ll ask his son.” The chorus was trolled forth in disjointed snatches, showing the singers to be very far gone indeed. The door stood ajar and I went in. So convinced was I of the necessity of playing my part thoroughly that I looked carefully round to see if Harry Gascoyne were present. The half-dozen or so roysterers looked up stupidly with open mouths. As a matter of fact, they were none of them drinking whisky, wine or sherry, but had very substantial mugs of ale before them. The atmosphere was thick with tobacco smoke and heavy with the reek from peasant limbs. The landlord, with a figure that threatened apoplexy, surveyed them from the other side of the bar with an approving smile as if he were presiding over an assemblage of highly well-behaved infants. To me he suggested a genial but relentless ghoul, callous to the feelings of the mothers and children who were to welcome home these repulsive sots as governors and lords of their lives and welfare. They sat waiting for me to speak. “Has Mr. Gascoyne been here to-night?” I asked. The landlord looked round the room, and, having as it were satisfied himself that none of the others knew of the young man being concealed unknown to himself, answered slowly: “I ain’t seen ’im.” “No more ain’t I,” came in phlegmatic chorus. “Are you quite sure?” “Quite.” “Thank you.” I withdrew. Miss Gascoyne came forward out of the dusk into the light which streamed from the front door. “He’s not there,” I said gravely. She looked at me in dismay. “Shall I tell them?” I asked. She reflected for a moment. “Yes. He may have fallen from his horse. We must look for him at once.” I turned towards the inn. “I will come with you,” she said, and we passed through the low door. The song had not been resumed. Evidently my errand had given food for conversation. The landlord paused in the middle of something he was saying and got down off his stool. “Mr. Gascoyne’s horse has returned home without him, and we are afraid he may have been thrown and hurt.” I spoke in a loud tone.