"Run, Ford! Make all speed. I think I see Miss Trevlyn's pony-carriage yonder with the ladies in it. Don't let them approach. Tell them to turn aside, to the office, and I'll come to them. Anywhere; anywhere but here." Ford ran with all his might. He met the carriage just at the top of the nearest hill, and unceremoniously laid his hand upon the pony, giving Mr. Chattaway's message as well as his breathless state would allow--begging they would turn aside and not approach the pit. It was evident that they were strangers as yet to the news, but the crowd and excitement round the pit had been causing them apprehension and a foreshadowing of the truth. Miss Diana, paying, as it appeared, little heed to the message, extended her whip in the direction of the scene. "I see what it is, Ford. Don't beat about the bush. How many were down the shaft?" "A great many, ma'am," was Ford's reply. "The pit was in full work to-day." "Was it fire-damp?" "I believe so." "Mr. Chattaway's safe, you say? He was not down? I suppose he was not likely to be down?" "No," answered Ford. But the thought of Mr. Chattaway's accident from another source, which he did not know whether to disclose or not, and the consciousness of a worse calamity, caused him to speak hesitatingly. Miss Diana was quick of apprehension, and awoke it. "Was any one down the shaft besides the men? Was--where's Rupert Trevlyn?" Ford looked as if he dared not answer. Mrs. Chattaway caught the alarm. She half rose in the low carriage, and stretched out her hands in a pleading attitude; as though Ford held the issues of life and death. "Oh, speak, speak! He was not down the shaft! Surely Rupert was not down the shaft!" "He had gone down but a short time before," said the young man in a whisper--for where was the use of denying the fact, now that they had guessed it? "We shall all mourn him, ma'am. I had almost as soon it had been me." "Gone down the shaft but a short time before!" mechanically repeated Miss Diana in her horror. But she was interrupted by a cry from Ford. Mrs. Chattaway had fallen back on her seat in a fainting-fit. CHAPTER XXXII A SHOCK FOR MR. CHATTAWAY The brightness of the day was turning to gloom, as if the heavens sympathised with the melancholy scene upon earth. Quietly pushing his way through the confusion, moans and lamentations, the mass of human beings surrounding the mouth of the pit, was a tall individual whose acquaintance you have made before. It was Mr. Daw with his red umbrella: the latter an unvarying appendage, whether the sun was shining or the clouds dropped rain. He went straight up to certain pale faces lying there in a row, and glanced at them one by one. "They are saying that Rupert Trevlyn is amongst the sufferers," he observed to those nearest to him. "So he is, master." "I do not see him here." "No; he ain't up yet." "Is there no hope that he may be brought to the surface alive?"