“Mother!” he cried, calling loudly from the top of the stairs, “for the love of God come here, and, if you can, tell me,” he went on excitedly, and laying his hand heavily on the bannisters to steady himself (the old lady, after making what haste she could, stood beside him on the landing)--“tell me, if you can, what has become of Honor.” “What has become of her? Why, what makes you think that anything has become of her?” retorted his mother, endeavouring to hide her own alarm by ill-acted bluster. “Nothing ever becomes of anybody that I know of. What in goodness’ name do you mean?” But in spite of her attempts to carry off matters with a high hand, Mrs. Beacham’s courage did begin to fail her at sight of the evidences of a sudden and desperate resolution with which, to her thinking, the room abounded. John, watching her countenance narrowly, drew his own auguries from what he read there. “Mother,” he said sternly, “may God forgive me if I am wrong, but I fear--I cannot help fearing--that you have something to do with--with what Honor--with what my poor wife may have done.” “I? What should I have to do with it?” she asked; but her voice trembled as she spoke, and sitting down hastily on the nearest chair, she waited in silence for what was to follow. “I don’t know--I can’t tell; my head seems in a whirl; but tell me--that at any rate you can do, mother--when did you see Honor last?” “At about ten o’clock, or thereabouts. You had been gone about half an hour when she went upstairs.” “And have none of the servants seen her since?” “I don’t know; you had better ask. I daresay it will turn out that she is somewhere close by--or gone to the Clays perhaps,--and that you have been making a great deal of fuss about nothing.” On this hint John at once acted. The idea that Honor might be paying a visit to her old friends was a possible, though scarcely a probable, solution of his difficulty; and he caught at it with eager hope. From the servants, when questioned, he could learn but little. Hannah had seen her young mistress with her hat on walking across the garden towards the village. She had not noticed whether Mrs. John had anything in her hand or not. She might have, _sure-ly_, for anything that Hannah knew. She didn’t take much heed, not she, being busy at the time, and thinking the missus was only going for a walk like. “Which I daresay she was,” John said more hopefully; “and, mother, if you’ll go to your dinner--I am very sorry I kept you so long waiting--I’ll look about a bit for Honor; and if it happens that I don’t find her, why I’ll ride over to the Clays and bring her back.”