Mr. Wycherly and Montagu heard the loud excited voices in the kitchen, and for the first time in all the years he had spent with Miss Esperance Mr. Wycherly entered the domain sacred to Elsa. He questioned Robina very gently and quietly, but could obtain no information that threw any light upon Edmund’s mysterious disappearance. They searched the house thoroughly, but with no success, and all four had gone out to look once more in the garden when Montagu exclaimed, "Why Mause is here, in her kennel, and she’s not chained up." The kennel was a large one, but Mause also was large and effectually blocked the doorway. "We’d better take her with us," said Mr. Wycherly, who was preparing to scour the village. "She’ll find him sooner than any of us." But to their astonishment Mause did not come to call. She refused to budge, and if any one came near her except Montagu she growled ominously and showed her teeth, a thing she had never done to members of her own household in the whole of her existence. By this time Miss Esperance had returned and was gravely disquieted by the news that met her, most of all by the fact that Mause should have deserted Edmund and that she should be so surly in her temper. "I can’t think what can have come over the dog," cried poor Miss Esperance. "Don’t go near her, Montagu, my son. I just wish she was on the chain." "I’ll put the chain on her, auntie; I’m not afraid," cried Montagu, breaking from his aunt’s detaining hand; and sure enough, Mause made not the smallest objection, but licked Montagu’s hand, and gazed with speaking, pathetic eyes at the group around the kennel, although she would allow no one to approach her except the little boy. "The gate was unlatched when we came in," said Mr. Wycherly. "I noticed that. I think he must have strayed into the village, and we’ll probably find him in one of the cottages. What I cannot understand is that Mause should have left him." "Mebbe some gaun-aboot-body’s ta’en him," wailed Robina, "and drove the dug awa’." "Hoot fie!" cried Elsa, indignantly. "They gaun-aboot-bodies has plenty bairns o’ their ain wi’oot nain o’ oor’s." "The burn’s gey and deep up the rod," sobbed Robina, who was determined to take the gloomiest view of things. Miss Esperance looked at Mr. Wycherly, and both were very pale. "Elsa and I will go into the village," she said tremulously. "Will you, dear friend, go—the other way? You would be of more use if—anything——" Miss Esperance paused, unable to voice the dreadful fear that possessed her. Montagu had sat down on the ground beside Mause, facing the kennel, with his arm round her shaggy neck; he leant his head against her, for he felt that she was in some sort of disgrace, and needed comforting. A sudden shaft of sunlight shone full on the pretty group. "Why, he’s in there all the time," Montagu cried excitedly. "I can see him; he’s fast asleep in Mause’s kennel, and that’s why she wouldn’t come out."