Olive received her bangle, and though startled by the abruptness with which it was returned, without message or explanation from Allan, as Clairette told her, she thought less of the circumstance then than she did a day or two after. Dinner was announced; Holcroft appeared in accurate evening dress as usual, and, after waiting a few minutes for Allan who did not appear, the meal was proceeded with in the slow fashion peculiar to Dundargue, though only five were seated at table. Ere dessert came, Lady Aberfeldie dispatched a servant to Allan's room in search of him. He was not there, though his evening dress was laid out as usual. 'Where can he be? Where can he have gone?' were the queries on all hands, which, as night began to draw on without his appearing, took the form of alarm, 'and what can have happened?' 'Did Allan drop hints of going anywhere?' asked Lord Aberfeldie. All answered 'No.' 'It is most mysterious.' Still more mysterious did it appear when the night, passed without his being seen, and when his place was still vacant at the breakfast-table next day. Lord Aberfeldie was in dire perplexity; the ladies were pale and already betook themselves to tears. 'If Allan has left the house as suddenly as he did before, he has taken neither clothes nor portmanteau with him, as Tappleton assures me; so what can it mean?' exclaimed Lord Aberfeldie. A gun was missing from the gun-room. Could Allan have gone to shoot with Logan at Loganlee? But Olive deemed it impossible that he would do so without consulting her, and on looking at Holcroft she thought he looked rather hot and disturbed. 'The bangle, the bangle!' thought the girl, with sudden terror. 'Can he have gone in a fit of jealousy. Mercy! if it should be so.' Inquiries proved that Allan had not passed out by the entrance gates, as the lodge-keeper affirmed, and no trace of footsteps could be found at any of the private gates to the grounds; and it was soon discovered that he had not taken a ticket for any place at the railway station. What terrible mystery was here? The family began to look with growing alarm and dismay blankly into each other's pale faces. Keepers and gillies, strong, active, and keen-sighted fellows, Hector, Alister Bain, Angus and Dugal Glas--even old Ronald Gair, the piper--searched, but in vain, the grounds, plantations, even the adjacent hills and glens; but not a trace was found of the missing Allan. He seemed suddenly to have dropped out of existence. As this, his last day at Dundargue, drew on, none made himself more active in searching and riding about the roads than Holcroft, and so preoccupied were all that no one--even Olive--noticed that his face was pale and cadaverous--and wore a very disturbed expression, and that his pale eyes seemed to glare defiantly if anyone looked at him, while he sedulously kept his _right hand gloved_. How are we to relate all that really had happened. CHAPTER II.