11 August.—Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an agonizing experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary. . . . Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy’s bed. I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressing-gown would mean house, dress outside. Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places. “Thank God,” I said to myself, “she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress.”

I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting room. Not there! Then I looked in all the other rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear chilling my heart. Finally, I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might happen. A vague over-mastering fear obscured all details.

I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fear, I don’t know which, of seeing Lucy in our favourite seat.

There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary’s Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view, and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately, but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell.

I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see. I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy’s condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty.

I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional appearance, though it was rather low down, “My dear young friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before the mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!! Joseph!!!” Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.

“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here’s one or two little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do I,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy infancy? And may I—may I—?”

This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent, and then sat down again.

“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favorites with equal judgment! And yet I cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “see afore me One—and likewise drink to One—without again expressing—May I—may I—?”

I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass and turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned myself upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to my head.

Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of tongue (none of those out–of–the–way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry, poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophizing the fowl in the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble roof for one as—Call it a weakness, if you will,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “but may I? may I—?”

It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself with my knife, I don’t know.

“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which had the honor of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the honor. May—”

I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.

“We’ll drink her health,” said I.

“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid with admiration, “that’s the way you know ’em, sir!” (I don’t know who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person present); “that’s the way you know the noble–minded, sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might,” said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, “to a common person, have the appearance of repeating— but may I—?”