"Don't!" he cried out sharply in the suffering tone of a man under the operating knife. "Don't! It all comes back! It is true! It is true! I can't get away from it! It is no nightmare. My God, men, how can I tell you? There's no way of saying it! It is impossible--preposterous--some monstrous joke--it's quite impossible I tell you--it couldn't have happened--such things don't happen--couldn't happen--to her--of all women! But she's gone--she's gone----"
"See here, Hamilton," cried my uncle, utterly beside himself with excitement, "are we to understand you are talking of your wife, or--or some other woman?"
"See here, Hamilton," I reiterated, quite heedless of the brutality of our questions and with a thousand wild suspicions flashing into my mind. "Is it your wife, Miriam, and your boy?"
"They were there--they waved to me from the garden at the edge of the woods as I entered the forest. Only this morning, both waving to me as I rode away--and when I returned from the city at noon, they were gone! I looked to the window as I came back. The curtain moved and I thought my boy was hiding, but it was only the wind. We've searched every nook from cellar to attic. His toys were littered about and I fancied I heard his voice everywhere, but no! No--no--and we've been hunting house and garden for hours----"
"And the forest?" questioned Uncle Jack, the trapper instinct of former days suddenly re-awakening.
"The forest is waist-deep with snow! Besides we beat through the bush everywhere, and there wasn't a track, nor broken twig, where they could have passed." His torn clothes bore evidence to the thoroughness of that search.
"Nonsense," my uncle burst out, beginning to bluster. "They've been driven to town without leaving word!"
"No sleigh was at Chateau Bigot this morning," returned Hamilton.
"But the road, Eric?" I questioned, recalling how the old manor-house stood well back in the center of a cleared plateau in the forest. "Couldn't they have gone down the road to those Indian encampments?"
"The road is impassable for sleighs, let alone walking, and their winter wraps are all in the house. For Heaven's sake, men, suggest something! Don't madden me with these useless questions!"