Allan had not been seen at the Manor. No one had rung the hall-door bell yesterday after luncheon. Mrs. Wornock's monastic solitude was not often intruded upon by visitors; and yesterday there had been no one. The door had not been opened after Miss Vincent went out, Geoffrey Wornock's impatient temper always choosing an easier mode of egress than that ponderous hall door, which required a servant's attendance, or else closed with a bang that reverberated through the house. Whatever Allan's intention might have been when he left Marsh House, he had not come to Discombe. Lady Emily and Mrs. Wornock were softened in their feelings for each other by a mutual terror; but Allan's mother dwelt upon the fact that the two young men, as travellers of old, might have started off upon some expedition; a run up to London to see some new production at the theatre; a billiard match; anything in which young men might be interested. "They must be much better friends than before they went to Africa--much closer companions," urged Lady Emily. "I feel there is less reason for fear now that I know your son is missing as well as Allan." Mrs. Wornock tried to take the same hopeful view; but she was of a less hopeful temperament, and she knew too much of Geoffrey's jealous distrust of his rival to believe that there had been any companionable feeling between the two young men since Allan's return. "Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid!" she moaned piteously, wringing her hands in an agony of apprehension. "What is it you fear? What calamity can have happened which would involve both your son and mine? Surely nothing dreadful could happen to both our sons, and yet no tidings come either to you or to me. Wherever they were--if any accident happened--one or other of them would be recognized. Some one would bring us the news. No; I have been anxious and unhappy; but I am sure now that I have been needlessly anxious. We shall hear from them--very soon." Mrs. Wornock clasped Lady Emily's hand in silence, and shook her head despondently. "What is it you fear?" asked Allan's mother. "I don't know--but I am full of fear for Geoffrey--for both of them." Lady Emily left her, depressed and dispirited by the fear which shrunk from shaping itself in words. The disposition to take a hopeful view of the case did not last in the face of Mrs. Wornock's mysterious agitations, and Allan's mother went back to Beechhurst stupefied with anxiety, able only to walk about the house, in and out of the empty rooms, in helpless misery. That state of not knowing what to fear ended suddenly soon after nine o'clock, when there came the sound of wheels, and a carriage stopped at the hall door. Lady Emily rushed to the door and opened it with her own hands, before any one had time to ring the bell; opened it to find herself face to face with the woman she had left only two hours before.