There was no one in sight. I walked cautiously to the river, expecting every moment to step over the edge... No sound of voices. I called: "Brackenbury!", "Arthur!", "Culroyd!". There was no answer. Do you know that quite unreasoning fear that sometimes overtakes one when one is in the dark and knows that one is not _alone_? And the river--like a looking-glass in a twilit room... I have a horror of any great expanse of water at night; it is so silent and merciless. "Culroyd! Brackenbury! Spenworth!," I called again--this time at the top of my voice. And then I am not ashamed to confess that I hurried back to the house as fast as my legs would carry me. It was no less deserted than the garden! Lights blazing, doors and windows open, but not a soul in sight; the very servants pressed into the hue-and-cry. I wandered through room after room, upstairs and down. When I went back to the terrace, it was with the crazy feeling that the world had come to an end and I alone was left... Suddenly a step on the gravel! And I do assure you that I did not know whether to scream with fear or sob with relief. "Lady Ann!" I was _far_ beyond recognizing voices. I _peered_ into the darkness until the figure of a man emerged from the shadows... "Colonel Butler!," I cried. "Where's Phyllida?," he asked. "Goodness me, what have you been doing to yourself?," I exclaimed. His clothes were in _rags_, he had lost his hat, he was plastered in mud from head to foot, and one arm was in some sort of make-shift sling. "Oh, that's nothing," he said. "A fool of a girl was riding a horse she couldn't control, and, in trying not to run her down, I had to turn the car over an embankment. There was no station within reach, so I had to come here across country. I'd have wired; but, by the time I reached a telegraph-office, everything was closed--" "But have you had no dinner?," I asked, remembering our own fate. "I don't want any dinner till I know what's happened to Phyllida. When did she disappear? Lord Brackenbury says she was out here one moment... If any thing's happened to her--" "Calm yourself, Colonel Butler," I enjoined. Indeed I might as profitably have addressed the advice to myself. It was time for some one to keep his head. I was thinking only of Phyllida and the effect that _another_ shock might have upon her. She was already so much overwrought, sobbing her heart out when any of us could have told her that there was _nothing_ to cry about... "We've been searching high and low," said Colonel Butler. "Lord Brackenbury told me that she suddenly bolted into the night. We haven't dared shout for fear of frightening her away... What's it all about? In the name of God, what can have happened to her?" "If you stay here," I said, "I will find her for you." "But do you know where she is?," he cried in great excitement. "I must come too." "Won't you trust my judgement, Colonel Butler?," I asked.