"Well, I don't know," pondered Joan; "it seems all a moither in my head; as if I couldn't put this and that together. I never saw nor heard anything of him at all this morning, and I find his bed has not been slept in, which looks as if he went last night. It's odd, too, that he didn't say he was going, and it's odd he should start off to London at midnight. Your papa is in one of his short tempers, Miss Katrine, and I've not dared to ask him about it." Katrine, as she listened, felt perfectly bewildered. Why had he taken his departure in this strange manner? What for? What had caused him to do it? Joan had told all she knew, and it was of no use questioning her further. Mr. Reste's chamber door stood open; Katrine halted at it and looked in. Why! he seemed to have taken nothing with him! His coats were hanging up; trifles belonging to him lay about on chairs; on the side shelf stood his little portable desk--and she had heard him say that he never travelled without that desk, it went with him wherever he went. Opening a drawer or two, she saw his linen, his neckties, his handkerchiefs. What was the meaning of it all? Could he have been recalled to London in some desperate hurry? But no letter or summons of any kind had come to Caramel Cottage, so far as she knew, except the letter from Captain Amphlett on Tuesday morning, and that one had not recalled him. "There be two pairs of his boots in the kitchen," said Joan. "He has took none with him but them he's got on." "I _must_ ask papa about it," cried the puzzled Katrine. Mr. Barbary was at the bottom of the garden working away at the celery bed in his shirt sleeves; his coat lay across the cucumber-frame. "What brings you home now?" he cried out, looking up as Katrine drew near. "The little girl is not well. Papa," she added, her voice taking a timid, shrinking tone, she hardly knew why, "Joan says Mr. Reste is gone." "Well?" "But why has he left so suddenly, without saying anything about it?" "He could do so if he pleased. He was at liberty to go or stay." Katrine could not dispute that. She hardly liked to say more, her father's answers were so curt and cross. "He must have gone unexpectedly, papa." "Unexpectedly! Not at all. He has been talking of going all the week." Katrine paused. "Is he coming back, papa?" "Not that I know of." "But he has not taken any of his things." "I am going to pack his things and send them after him." "But----_when_ did he go, papa?" Mr. Barbary, who had kept on working, drew himself bolt upright. Letting his hands rest on the handle of his spade, he looked sternly into Katrine's face. "He went last night." "He----he never told me he was going. He never said anything about it."