The
tough-nerved yeoman, in his comment, put a finish on the business,
and brought out the hideous idea in its full terror, as if he were
removing the napkin from the face of a corpse.
"And so you think she's drowned herself?" he cried. I turned away my
face.
"What on earth should the young woman do that for?" exclaimed Silas,
his eyes half out of his head with mere surprise. "Why, she has more
means than she can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make her
comfortable, but a husband, and that's an article she could have, any
day. There's some mistake about this, I tell you!"
"Come," said I, shuddering; "let us go and ascertain the truth."
"Well, well," answered Silas Foster; "just as you say. We'll take
the long pole, with the hook at the end, that serves to get the
bucket out of the draw-well when the rope is broken. With that, and
a couple of long-handled hay-rakes, I'll answer for finding her, if
she's anywhere to be found. Strange enough! Zenobia drown herself!
No, no; I don't believe it. She had too much sense, and too much
means, and enjoyed life a great deal too well."
When our few preparations were completed, we hastened, by a shorter
than the customary route, through fields and pastures, and across a
portion of the meadow, to the particular spot on the river-bank which
I had paused to contemplate in the course of my afternoon's ramble.
A nameless presentiment had again drawn me thither, after leaving
Eliot's pulpit. I showed my companions where I had found the
handkerchief, and pointed to two or three footsteps, impressed into
the clayey margin, and tending towards the water.
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