Let me only find Maisie, said I to myself, and I would wash my hands of any further to-do with the whole vile business.
But we were not to find Maisie during the long hours of that weary afternoon and the evening that followed it.

Mr.Lindsey had bade me keep the car and spare no expense, and we journeyed hither and thither all round the district, seeking news and getting none.

She had been seen just once, at East Ord, just outside Berwick, by a man that was working in his cottage garden by the roadside--no other tidings could we get.

We searched all along the road that runs by the side of Bowmont Water, between Mindrum and the Yetholms, devoting ourselves particularly to that stretch as being the loneliest, and without result.

And as the twilight came on, and both of us were dead weary, we turned homeward, myself feeling much more desperate than even I did when I was swimming for my very life in the North Sea.
"And I'm pretty well sure of what it is, now, Mr.Smeaton!" I exclaimed as we gave up the search for that time.