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“Yes, yes, Mr. Lapierre, not a doubt on it,” resumed old Jonathan, “you’ve a passed him on the road athout seein’ ‘im. It was dark, and you were both in a hurry. I’ve heerd o’ lots o’ stranger things nor that.”

Lapierre couldn’t see it. He knew well enough that it was no more possible for him to pass a man on horseback on that narrow highway, on a clear night, without seeing him–more especially when he was out for the express purpose of finding that very man–than it was possible for him to serve out un petit verre of French brandy in mistake for a gill of Hollands. The facts, however, seemed to be wholly against him, as he bade the old couple a despondent good-night and put Count Frontenac to his mettle. He stayed not for brook–there was a brook a short distance up the road–and he stopped not for stone, but tore along at a break-neck pace as though he was riding for a wager. In five minutes he reached Savareen’s front gate.

Mrs. Savareen was waiting there, on the look-out for her husband. No, of course he had not got home. She had neither seen nor heard anything of him, and was by this time very uneasy. You may be sure that her anxiety was not lessened when she heard the strange tale which Lapierre had to tell her.

Even then, however, she did not give up the hope of her husband’s arrival sometime during the night. Lapierre promised to look in again in an hour or two, and passed on to his own place, where he regaled the little company he found there with the narrative of his evening’s exploits. Before bedtime the story was known all over the neighborhood.

CHAPTER V.

ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.

Mrs. Savareen sat up waiting for her lord until long past midnight, but her vigil was in vain. Lapierre, after closing up his inn for the night, dropped in, according to his promise, to see if any news of the absentee had arrived. Nothing further could be done in the way of searching for the latter personage until daylight.

It was getting on pretty well towards morning when Mrs. Savareen sought her couch, and when she got there her slumber was broken and disturbed. She knew not what to think, but she was haunted by a dread that she would never again see her husband alive.

Next morning, soon after daylight, the whole neighborhood was astir, and the country round was carefully searched for any trace of the missing man. Squire Harrington went down to town and made inquiries at the bank, where he ascertained that the story told by Savareen to old Jonathan Perry, as to his altercation with Shuttleworth, was substantially correct. This effectually disposed of any possible theory as to Jonathan and his wife having mistaken somebody else for Savareen. Squire Harrington likewise learned all about the man’s doings on the previous afternoon, and was able to fix the time at which he had started for home. He had ridden from the door of the Peacock at about a quarter to eight. This would bring him to the toll-gate at eight o’clock–the hour at which Perry professed to have seen and conversed with him. There was no longer any room for doubt. That interview and conversation had actually taken place at eight o’clock on the previous evening, and Savareen had ridden northward from the gate within five minutes afterwards. He could not have proceeded more than a hundred–or, at the very outside, two hundred–yards further, or he must inevitably have been encountered by Lapierre. How had he contrived to vanish so suddenly out of existence? And it was not only the man, but the horse, which had disappeared in this unaccountable manner. It seemed improbable that two living substances of such bulk should pass out of being and leave no trace behind them. They must literally have melted into thin air.