Also, as Lady Scrope's house was not shut up, she could go thence to pay a visit home at any time, and she had just come from one such visit now.
Gertrude sprang up at sight of her, asking anxiously: "Dorcas! Dorcas! what is wrong ?" "Reuben!" cried Dorcas, with a great catch in her breath, and then she fell sobbing again as though her heart would break.
Gertrude stood like one turned to stone, her face growing as white as her kerchief.
"What of Reuben ?" she asked, in a voice that she hardly knew for her own.

"He is not--dead ?" "Pray Heaven he be not," cried Dorcas through her sobs; and then, with a great effort controlling herself, she told her brief tale.
"I went home at noon today and found them all in sore trouble.
Reuben has not been seen or heard of for three days.

Mother says she had a fear for several days before that that something was amiss; he looked so wan, and ate so little, and seemed like one out of whom all heart is gone.

He would go forth daily to his work, but he came home harassed and tired, and on the last morning she thought him sick; but he said he was well, and promised to come home early.

Then she let him go, and no one has seen him since.
"Oh, what can have befallen him?
There seems but one thing to believe.