Close to the high road, where they were now approaching it through the fields, a rail-fence had just been put up, inclosing a piece of ground which the owner wished to let for building.  That the fact might be known, he was about to erect a post with a great board announcing it.  For this post a man had dug the hole, and then gone to his dinner.  The inclosure lay between Faber and the road, in the direct line he was taking.  On went Ruber blindly—­more blindly than his master knew, for, with the prolonged running, he had partially lost his sight, so that he was close to the fence before he saw it.  But he rose boldly, and cleared it—­to light, alas! on the other side with a foreleg in the hole.  Down he came with a terrible crash, pitched his master into the road upon his head, and lay groaning with a broken leg.  Faber neither spoke nor moved, but lay as he fell.  A poor woman ran to his assistance, and finding she could do nothing for him, hurried to the town for help.  His friend, who was the first surgeon in the place, flew to the spot, and had him carried to his house.  It was a severe case of concussion of the brain.

Poor old Ruber was speedily helped to a world better than this for horses, I trust.

Meantime Glaston was in commotion.  The servants had spread the frightful news that their mistress had vanished, and their master ridden off like a madman.  “But he won’t find her alive, poor lady!  I don’t think,” was the general close of their communication, accompanied by a would-be wise and really sympathetic shake of the head.  In this conclusion most agreed, for there was a general impression of something strange about her, partly occasioned by the mysterious way in which Mrs. Puckridge had spoken concerning her illness and the marvelous thing the doctor had done to save her life.  People now supposed that she had gone suddenly mad, or, rather, that the latent madness so plain to read in those splendid eyes of hers had been suddenly developed, and that under its influence she had rushed away, and probably drowned herself.  Nor were there wanting, among the discontented women of Glaston, some who regarded the event—­vaguely to their own consciousness, I gladly admit—­as almost a judgment upon Faber for marrying a woman of whom nobody knew any thing.

Hundreds went out to look for the body down the river.  Many hurried to an old quarry, half full of water, on the road to Broughill, and peered horror-stricken over the edge, but said nothing.  The boys of Glaston were mainly of a mind that the pond at the Old House was of all places the most likely to attract a suicide, for with the fascination of its horrors they were themselves acquainted.  Thither therefore they sped; and soon Glaston received its expected second shock in the tidings that a lady’s bonnet had been found floating in the frightful pool:  while in the wet mass the boys brought back with them, some of her acquaintance recognized with certainty a bonnet