"Go right in, then," said Jerome; and she obeyed, keeping her face turned away. Her childish back looked like an old woman's as she entered the door. Jerome unharnessed the horse, led him into the barn, fed him, and drew some water for him from the well. When he came out of the barn, after it was all done, he saw Doctor Prescott's chaise turning into the yard. The doctor and Jake Noyes were in it. When the chaise stopped, Jerome went up to it, bobbed his head and scraped his foot. A handsome, keenly scowling face looked out of the chaise at him. Doctor Seth Prescott was over fifty, with a smooth-shaven face as finely cut as a woman's, with bright blue eyes under bushy brows, and a red scratch-wig. Before years and snows and rough winds had darkened and seamed his face, he had been a delicately fair man. "Has he come yet?" he demanded, peremptorily. Jerome bobbed and scraped again. "No, sir." "You didn't see a sign of him in the woods?" Jerome hesitated visibly. The doctor's eyes shone more sharply. "You didn't, eh?" "No, sir," said Jerome. "Does your mother know it?" "Yes, sir." "How is she?" "She fainted away, but she's better." The doctor got stiffly out of the chaise, took his medicine-chest, and went into the house. "Stay here till I come out," he ordered Jerome, without looking back. "The doctor's goin' to send a posse out lookin' with lanterns," Jake Noyes told Jerome. Jerome made a grunt, both surly and despairing, in response. He was leaning against the wheel of the chaise; he felt strangely weak. "Mebbe we'll find him 'live an' well," said Jake, consolingly. "No, ye won't." "Mebbe 'twon't be nothin' wuss than a broken bone noway, an' the doctor, he can fix that." Jerome shook his head. "The doctor, he's goin' to do everything that can be done," said Jake. "He's sent Lawrence over to East Corners for some ropes an' grapplin'-hooks." Then Jerome roused himself. "What for?" he demanded, in a furious voice. Jake hesitated and colored. "Mebbe I hadn't ought to have said that," he stammered. "Course there ain't no need of havin' 'em. It's just because the doctor wants to do everything he can." "What for?" "Well--you know there's the pond--an'--" "Didn't I tell you my father didn't go near the pond?" "Well, I don't s'pose he did," said Jake, shrewdly; "but it won't do no harm to drag it, an' then everybody will know for sure he didn't." "Can't drag it anyhow," said Jerome, and there was an odd accent of triumph in his voice. "The Dead Hole 'ain't got any bottom." Jake laughed. "That's a darned lie," said he. "I helped drag it myself once, forty year ago; a girl by the name of 'Lizy Ann Gooch used to live 'bout a mile below here on the river road, was missin'. She wa'n't there; found her bones an' her straw bonnet in the swamp two years afterwards, but, Lord, we dragged the Dead hole--scraped bottom every time." Jerome stared at him, his chin dropping.