I went back to bed and soon fell asleep again.
I do not know whether I had been dreaming, but I woke suddenly with a presentation of the little pond on the Common very clear before me.
"We never looked in the pond," I thought, and then--"but he could not have fallen into the pond; besides, it's not two feet deep."
It was full daylight, and I got up and found that it was nearly seven o'clock.
The rain had stopped, but there was a scurry of low, threatening cloud that blew up from the south.
I dressed at once and went out. I made my way directly to the Stotts' cottage.
The lamp was still burning and the door open, but Ellen Mary had fallen forward on to the table; her head was pillowed on her arms.
"There is a limit to our endurance," I reflected, "and she has reached it."
Outside I met two of Farmer Bates's labourers going back to work.
"I want you to come up with me to the pond," I said.
On the side from which we approached, the ground sloped gradually, and the water was stretching out far beyond its accustomed limits.
On the farther side the gorse among the trunks of the three ash-trees came right to the edge of the bank. On that side the bank was three or four feet high.
We came to the edge of the pond, and one of the labourers waded in a little way--the water was very shallow on that side--but we could see nothing for the scum of weed, little spangles of dirty green, and a mass of some other plant that had borne a little white flower in the earlier part of the year--stuff like dwarf hemlock.
Under the farther bank, however, I saw one comparatively clear space of black water.
"Let's go round," I said, and led the way.
There was a tiny path which twisted between the gorse roots and came out at the edge of the farther bank by the stem of the tallest ash. I had seen tiny village boys pretending to fish from this point with a stick and a piece of string. There was a dead branch of ash some five or six feet long, with the twigs partly twisted off; it was lying among the bushes. I remembered that I had seen small boys using this branch to clear away the surface weed. I picked it up and took it with me.
I wound one arm round the trunk of the ash, and peered over into the water under the bank.