Read "Starvecrow Farm" by Stanley J. Weyman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
To return to Bishop. Thrown off the trail in the wood, he pushed along the road as far as Windermere village. There, however, he could hear nothing. No one of Henrietta's figure and appearance had been seen there. And in the worst of humours, with the world as well as with himself, he put about and returned to the inn. If the girl had come back during his absence, it was bad enough; he had had his trouble for nothing, and might have spared his shoe-leather. Hang such pretty frailties for him! But if, on the other hand, she had not come back, the case was worse. He had been left to watch her, and the blame would fall on him. Nadin would say more than he had said already about London officers and their uselessness. And if anything happened to her! Bishop wiped his brow as he thought of that, and of his next meeting with Captain Clyne. It was to be hoped, be devoutly hoped, that nothing had happened to the jade.
It wanted half an hour of sunset, when he arrived, fagged and fuming, at the inn; and if his worst fears were not realised, he soon had ground to dread that they might be. Miss Damer had not returned.