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 Towzer, I begin to suspect, within the same time, have you? That's what's the matter with you. Whoever lives here has gone off on some errand or other away from the island. What sort of errand can it be that has made the family stay so much longer than they must have expected to stay?" Vague, disagreeable feelings crossed Touchtone's mind. It was strange. "I must be certain of things in the place before I go back to Gerald. What if there should have been some plague, some awful accident on the premises?"

He began to wonder, almost to dread, what might come under his eyes any minute. Suppose that this lonely house would not prove the shelter for them at all. Various reasons for the silence and desertion of the dwelling, despite all signs of recent occupancy and peaceful daily life, came thronging.

He paused a moment, leaning against a clean kitchen-table whereon were set several pieces of china ready to be laid upon the shelves around the walls—another task mysteriously post-poned. The dog he had christened Towzer now whined and fawned on him hungrily. Philip whistled loudly, once, twice, half a