“If I were in your place,” went on the butcher, “I should be thankful she has taken herself away. It’s my belief she is mad. There’s many a one who, in the end, kills somebody, who has shown no more signs of it beforehand. It ought to be somebody’s public duty to look after such before they do mischief, if there’s nobody of their own that cares enough for them to keep them out of harm’s way.” Tom went home full of this news. It was very astonishing to Lucy, but Miss Latimer was in a measure prepared for it, as she owned the idea had already crossed her mind, though she little expected it would have such swift corroboration. Lucy’s first thought was an immense thankfulness that Hugh’s life had been preserved from all risks; her second, a remembrance of the child’s instinctive shrinking from Clementina; her third, a wave of pity for this disordered mind, for there could be no lingering doubt that Dr. Ivery’s diagnosis was correct. “If she is insane,” said Lucy, “it is no blame of hers. We must think only of what has become of her, and of how we should act on her behalf. Knowing of her through Rachel, and hearing of her as a lonely woman with no near relatives, I don’t know with whom to communicate, except Rachel. Rachel may know something more. We must telegraph to her at Bath.” Rachel’s answer came quickly. “Astonished. Gillespie, brother lives at Inverslain, Sutherland. Relations in Hull, address unknown. My mistress very ill.” There did not seem much help there. Presently Tom, glancing round the dining-room, exclaimed— “I do miss something! I miss the railway time-table which Mrs. Grant left behind her. It was on the mantelshelf last night. Clementina has taken it with her. She has gone somewhere by train!” “Let us hope she has gone straight back to her own village,” said Miss Latimer. “We must at once telegraph to the brother,” insisted Lucy. “‘Gillespie, Inverslain,’ does not seem much of an address to Londoners; but I daresay it is a little place, and that he is known there.” “There’s no Inverslain on any railway line,” Tom discovered, busily turning over an old “Bradshaw.” Thereupon Lucy gave him a sovereign and despatched him to the post office to discover how a sufficiently lucid message could best reach a remote Highland hamlet, bidding him not grudge any charge which might be made for porterage. He brought her back her change, having had to make a liberal deduction from the sovereign, since “Inverslain” was reported to be a tiny Highland “clachan,” twelve miles from any telegraph office. Tom had also bought an evening paper, and had privately scanned its columns with great care to see whether they might contain any item which could possibly refer to the hapless Clementina. He found none. But he found something he did not expect, to wit, a paragraph relating the finding of the spar and sail of the absentee _Slains Castle_. The sad suggestion had now become public property.