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 I cannot conceive, nor perhaps may never be able to discover. Blanche has disappeared: I have every reason to believe she has joined that villain Claude. The moment I returned from your chamber, I sent for her, determined on trying to extort from her a confession of her guilt, but she was just gone out. On hearing this, I directly repaired to her father, a simple shepherd, long known to me, and one whom I have ever found conscientiously just in all his dealings. I enquired for his daughter; he had not seen her the whole day he said. I then in a careless manner asked him if he knew a person of the name of Claude?—No, he instantly replied.

'From his cottage I hastened to the valley where you said your brother had fallen; but the body was gone. Struck by a circumstance so strange, I stood as it were transfixed to the spot for a few minutes; at last I was turning away, when deep groans pierced my ear, and made me again pause.'