"Of course she must," agreed Mrs. Buckley. Now don't you worrit yourself, Mr. Holmes. You can't put old heads on young shoulders, you know. I'll be bound Miriam found herself at Saddleworth long before the appointed time, and just pushed on to meet your sister instead of dallying about the inn door, no very suitable place for a young maiden to be wandering about. She skims over the ground like a swallow, and never seems to weary walking. Those Burnplatters taught her to use her legs, if they taught her nothing else. We'll have a supper-tray brought in in a jiffy, and then, unless you'll stay the night we'll send you as far as the 'Hanging Gate' in the trap. When you get home your friend Jim will have news for you, no doubt, and you'll be able to laugh together over this game of hide and seek. But there was no laughing when, after midnight, I once more reached Wrigley Mill. Both Jim, and Mary were sitting up in the little kitchen, looking anxious and careworn. Miriam had not gone to Pole Moor. Then where could she be? That she had started to meet Ruth was certain; that she had not met her, that she was not at Bent Hall, nor at Wrigley Mill Fold nor at Pole Moor, equally certain. That evil had befallen her even Jim, the utmost sanguine of men, could scarce combat. A horrible fear beset me. Miriam might have been overtaken on the moors by some sudden all-enveloping mist, might have wandered up and down the cruel, sodden moors till, overcome by hunger and fatigue, she had fallen in a fatal stupor, and might even now be lying cold and stark upon some rain-swept hill, or might have strayed with weary, faltering feet and trembling limbs into some mill-race or dam, there to sink to death, with none to hear her cries. Then another thought beset my fevered brain. At that time large gangs of navvies, "Pats" we called them, were making the road from Greenfield by way of Riddings and Mossley Bottoms to Stalybridge to complete the turnpike from Manchester to Holmfirth. Might not Miriam have encountered one or more of those rough and often lawless men on her lonely way, and might not hers have been a fate far worse than the worst of deaths. The mere thought was madness. My weariness fell from me. Late though it was, and dark as pitch, I would have started there and then for Greenfield and the huts and inns in which the navvies lodged, but Jim calmly locked the door and put the key in his pocket.