Rufus drew back. The mere action said, No, before he answered in words. “Have you seen nothing of her? heard nothing of her?” “Nothing. Steady, now! Meet it like a man; and tell me what has happened.” Amelius told him in two words. “Don’t suppose I’m going to break out again as I did this morning,” he went on; “I’m too wretched and too anxious to be angry. Only tell me, Rufus, have you said anything to her--?” Rufus held up his hand. “I see what you’re driving at. It will be more to the purpose to tell you what she said to me. From first to last, Amelius, I spoke kindly to her, and I did her justice. Give me a minute to rummage my memory.” After brief consideration, he carefully repeated the substance of what had passed between Sally and himself, during the latter part of the interview between them. “Have you looked about in her room?” he inquired, when he had done. “There might be a trifling something to help you, left behind her there.” Amelius told him of Toff’s suggestion. They returned together at once to the cottage. Madame Toff was waiting to begin the search. The first discovery was easily made. Sally had taken off one or two little trinkets--presents from Amelius, which she was in the habit of wearing--and had left them, wrapped up in paper, on the dressing-table. No such thing as a farewell letter was found near them. The examination of the wardrobe came next--and here a startling circumstance revealed itself. Every one of the dresses which Amelius had presented to her was hanging in its place. They were not many; and they had all, on previous occasions, been passed in review by Toff’s wife. She was absolutely certain that the complete number of the dresses was there in the bedroom. Sally must have worn something, in place of her new clothes. What had she put on? Looking round the room, Amelius noticed in a corner the box in which he had placed the first new dress that he had purchased for Sally, on the morning after they had met. He tried to open the box: it was locked--and the key was not to be found. The ever-ready Toff fetched a skewer from the kitchen, and picked the lock in two minutes. On lifting the cover, the box proved to be empty. The one person present who understood what this meant was Amelius. He remembered that Sally had taken her old threadbare clothes away with her in the box, when the angry landlady had insisted on his leaving the house. “I want to look at them sometimes,” the poor girl had said, “and think how much better off I am now.” In those miserable rags she had fled from the cottage, after hearing the cruel truth. “He had better have left me where I was,” she had said. “Cold and hunger and ill-treatment would have laid me at rest by this time.” Amelius fell on his knees before the empty box, in helpless despair. The conclusion that now forced itself on his mind completely unmanned him. She had gone back, in the old dress, to die under the cold, the hunger, and the horror of the old life.