been seen coming back. Mr. Vernon Whitford had passed through half an
hour later.

"After his young man!" said the colonel.

The lodge-keeper's wife and daughter knew of Master Crossjay's pranks;
Mr. Whitford, they said, had made inquiries about him and must have
caught him and sent him home to change his dripping things; for Master
Crossjay had come back, and had declined shelter in the lodge; he
seemed to be crying; he went away soaking over the wet grass, hanging
his head. The opinion at the lodge was that Master Crossjay was
unhappy.

"He very properly received a wigging from Mr. Whitford, I have no
doubt," said Colonel Do Craye.

Mother and daughter supposed it to be the case, and considered Crossjay
very wilful for not going straight home to the Hall to change his wet
clothes; he was drenched.

Do Craye drew out his watch. The time was ten minutes past eleven. If
the surmise he had distantly spied was correct, Miss Middleton would
have been caught in the storm midway to her destination. By his guess
at her character (knowledge of it, he would have said), he judged that
no storm would daunt her on a predetermined expedition. He deduced in
consequence that she was at the present moment flying to her friend,
the charming brunette Lucy Darleton.

Still, as there was a possibility of the rain having been too much for
her, and as he had no other speculation concerning the route she had