You can
see the flat weeds on the floor of the lake, as if it were through a
thin pane of glass. No, if Bulmer had only broken the ice he
wouldn't have said much at the moment, though possibly a good deal
afterward. We should have found him stamping and damning up and down
this path, and calling for clean boots."
"Let us hope we shall find him as happily employed," remarked the
diplomatist. "In that case the voice must have come out of the
wood."
"I'll swear it didn't come out of the house," said Fisher; and the
two disappeared together into the twilight of wintry trees.
The plantation stood dark against the fiery colors of sunrise, a
black fringe having that feathery appearance which makes trees when
they are bare the very reverse of rugged. Hours and hours afterward,
when the same dense, but delicate, margin was dark against the
greenish colors opposite the sunset, the search thus begun at
sunrise had not come to an end. By successive stages, and to slowly
gathering groups of the company, it became apparent that the most
extraordinary of all gaps had appeared in the party; the guests
could find no trace of their host anywhere. The servants reported
that his bed had been slept in and his skates and his fancy costume
were gone, as if he had risen early for the purpose he had himself
avowed.
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