It is always amazing when you start rambling in company with others how quickly you can find yourself alone.

By the time Ingred had gathered a fragrant, sweet-smelling bunch and looked round for somebody to admire it, her schoolmates were gone.
She hunted about for them, and noticed Verity's green jersey and Kitty's brown tam-o'-shanter in the wood above.

Surely they must all be up there together.
She was just going to follow, when a qualm of conscience seized her.

She had not delivered Miss Strong's message to Bess, and it would perhaps be as well to ascertain that the latter had not strayed unwarned into the danger zone.
"It's not at all likely," Ingred kept repeating to herself, as she walked briskly along the meadow to the fence.

"I'm really only going on a wild goose chase." Likely or unlikely, it was the very thing which had happened.