"Right," emphatically pronounced the doctor. But the word had hardly left his lips when there occurred a startling interruption. The outer door of the surgery, the one he had come in by, was violently drummed at, and then thrown open. Charlotte Knox, Miss Mack the governess, and Sally the maid--the same Sally who had been at Rose Villa when the trouble occurred about Janet Carey, and the same Miss Mack who had replaced Janet--came flocking in. "Dicky's lost, Arnold," exclaimed Charlotte. "Dicky lost!" repeated Dr. Knox. "How can he be lost at this time of night?" "He _is_ lost. And we had nearly gone to bed without finding it out. The people had all left, and the doors were locked, when some one--Gerty, I think--began to complain of Dicky----" "It was I who spoke," interposed the governess; and though she was fat enough for two people she had the meekest little voice in the world, and allowed herself to be made a perfect tool of at Rose Villa. "Dicky did behave very ill at supper, eating rudely of everything, and----" "Yes, yes," broke in Charlotte, "I remember now, Macky. You said Dicky ought to be restrained, and you wondered he was not ill; and then mamma called out, 'But where is Dicky?' 'Gone to bed to sleep off his supper,' we all told her: and she sent Sally up to see that he had put his candle out." "And of course," interrupted Sally, thinking it was her turn to begin, "when I found the room empty, and saw by the moonlight that Master Dicky had not come to bed at all, I ran down to say so. And his mamma got angry, accusing us servants of having carelessly locked him out-of-doors. And he can't be found, sir--as Miss Lotty says." "No, he cannot be found anywhere," added Lotty. "We have searched the house and the gardens, and been in to inquire at Lady Jenkins's; and he is _gone_. And mamma is frantic, and said we were to come to you, Arnold." "Master Dicky's playing truant: he has gone off with some of the guests," observed Dr. Knox. "Well, mamma is putting herself into a frightful fever over him, Arnold. That old well in the field at the back was opened the day before yesterday; she says Dicky may have strayed there and fallen in." "Dicky's after more mischief than that," said the doctor, sagely. "A well in a solitary field would have no charms for Dicky. I tell you, Lotty, he must have marched home with some one or other. Had you any lads up there to-night?" "No, not any. You know mamma never will have them. Lads, _and_ Dicky, would be too much." "If Master Dicky have really gone off, as the doctor thinks, I'd lay my next quarter's wages that it's with Captain Collinson," cried Sally. "He is always wanting to be after the captain." Lotty lifted her face, a gleam of intelligence flashing across it. "Perhaps that's it," she said; "I should not wonder if it is. He has strayed off after, or with, Captain Collinson. What is to be done, Arnold?"