"What was the peril?" "That's what I can't tell. A consciousness lay upon me that it was something very bad and frightful; but of its nature I saw nothing. I did not go to sleep again: it must have been about six o'clock, but the mornings are very dark, you know. I got up soon: what with this dinner-party and other things, there has been a great deal to do to-day, and I soon forgot my dream. Robert called after breakfast, and the sight of him put me in mind of it. I felt a great inclination to tell him to take especial care of himself; but he would only have laughed at me. He drove away direct to the Timberdale Station, to take the train for Worcester." She did not say, though, what he had gone for to Worcester. To get the ring and licence. "I have not felt the smallest fear of the dream all along, Johnny, since I awoke. Excepting for the few minutes Robert was here, I don't remember even to have thought of it. But when his brothers and Mr. West came in without him to-night, it flashed into my mind like a dart. I felt sure then that something had happened. I dare say we shall never be married now." "Jane!" "Well, Johnny Ludlow, I think it." To me it seemed to be growing serious. There might be nothing at all in what she had said; most people would have said there was nothing; but, sitting there in the quiet room listening to her earnest voice, seeing her anxious face, a feeling came over me that there _was_. What had become of Robert Ashton? Where could he be? "I wish you would give me that shawl of mamma's," she said, pointing to one on a chair. "I feel cold." She was shivering when I put it over her pretty white shoulders and arms. And yet the fire was roaring to the very top of the grate. "Alone here, while you were at dinner, I went over all sorts of probabilities," she resumed, drawing the shawl round her as if she were out in the snow. "Of course there are five hundred things that might happen to him, but I can only think of one." "Well?" for she had stopped. She seemed to be speaking very unwillingly. "If he walked he would be almost sure to take the near way, across the Ravine." Was she ever coming to the point? I said nothing. It was better to let her go on in her own way. "I dare say you will say the idea is far-fetched, Johnny. What I think is, that he may have fallen down the Ravine, in coming here." Well, I did think it far-fetched. I'd as soon have expected her to say fallen down the chimney. "Those zigzag paths are not very safe in good weather, especially the one on the Timberdale side," she went on. "With the snow on them, perhaps ice, they are positively dangerous. One false step at the top--and the fall might kill him." Put in this way, it seemed feasible enough. But yet--somehow I did not take to it. "Robert Ashton is strong and agile, Jane. He has come down the zigzag hundreds of times."