"It was this way, dear: she came into the room, and took baby into her arms, and asked for some dinner. She didn't seem no way taken with baby at first, but when I told her how much you loved our little Miss Pearl, she asked me to give her to her quite greedy-like, and ordered me to fetch some dinner for herself, for she was starving, she said. I offered that Alice should bring it; but no, she was all that I should choose something as would tempt her appetite, and she coaxed with that pretty way she have, and I went down to the kitchen myself to please her. I'll never forgive myself, never, to the longest day I live. I wasn't ten minutes gone, but when I come back with a nice little tray of curry, and some custard pie, Miss Flower and the baby were away. That's all--they hasn't been seen since." "How long ago is that, Nurse?" "I couldn't rightly tell you, dearie--maybe two hours back. I ran all round the moor anywhere near, and so did every servant in the house, but since the Doctor come in they has done the thing properly. Now where are you going, Miss Polly, love?" "To my father. I wish this horrid noise wouldn't go on in my head. Don't worry me, Nurse. I know it was my fault. I wouldn't listen to the warning, and I would provoke her, but don't scold me now until I have done my work." Polly rushed downstairs. "Where's father?" she asked of Bunny, who was sobbing violently, and clinging in a frantic manner to Firefly's skirts. "I--I don't know. He's out." "He's away on the moor," said Fly. "Polly, are you really anxious about baby Pearl?" "I have no time to be anxious," said Polly. "I must find her first. I'll tell you then if I'm anxious. Where's Nell, where are the twins?" "On the moor; they all went out with father." "Which moor, the South or Peg-Top?" "I think the South moor." "All right, I'm going out too. What's the matter, Fly? Oh, you're not to come." "Please, please, it's so horrid in the house, and Bunny does make my dress so soppy with crying into it." "You're not to come. You are to stay here and do your best, your very best, for father and the others when they come home. If they don't meet me, say I've gone to look for baby and for Flower. I'll come back when I've found them. If _they_ find baby and Flower, they might ask to have the church bells rung, then I'll know. Don't stare at me like that, Fly; it was my fault, so I must search until I find them." Polly ran out of the house and down the lawn. Once again she was out on the moor. The great solitary commons stretched to right and left; they were everywhere, they filled the whole horizon, except just where Sleepy Hollow lay, with its belt of trees, its cultivated gardens, and just beyond the little village and the church with the square, gray tower. There was a great lump in Polly's throat, and a mist before her eyes. The dreadful beating was still going on in her heart, and the surging, ceaseless waves of sound in her ears. Suddenly she fell on her knees.