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When Cecile sank down in a swoon in the hut, Toby, who had been lying on the ground apparently half asleep, had risen impatiently. Things were by no means to this dog's liking; in fact, things had come to such a pass that he could no longer bear them quietly. Maurice gone; Joe quite wild and distracted; and Cecile lying like one dead. Toby had an instinct quite through his honest heart that the time had come for _him_ to act and with a wild howl he rushed into the forest.
Neither of the two he left behind noticed him; both were too absorbed in the world into which they had entered -- Cecile was lying in the borderland between life and death, and Joe's poor feet had strayed to the edge of that darker country where dwells despair.