When it's discovered that Sarah is missing, Nanny Louisa of course blames Hetty but the family quickly comes together to search for her, calling in Constable Jeffries to help, for all the good that does. Peter admits that he took Sarah to the circus and that she had been fascinated by the fortune teller. Alec goes to the circus looking for her, but the carnies are uncooperative... they won't even admit that there had been a fortune teller with their group. Alec rides up the road a ways to see if he can spot the wagon and comes across one of Sarah's shoes. It turns out that she found a hole in the floor of the wagon and has been pushing some of her belongings out periodically, to leave a trail. Following it, Alec realizes that the wagon has left the road and gone into the woods. He approaches it, but the dude hears him coming and shoots, wounding Alec in the upper arm. Alec ends up tied in the back of the wagon with Sarah while an argument ensues amongst the baddies as to what's to be done with them. This is bad of course, but it gives Sarah and Alec a chance to talk and mend the rift between them, with Alec assuring Sarah that he loves her like one of his own children.
Later, Louisa finds Hetty who has locked herself away to have a private cry over the thought of Sarah leaving again and informs her that she's decided that it's best for Sarah to stay with her family on the Island, at least for now. Louisa herself returns to Montreal to take care of the Stanley house there.
This is a good episode of Road To Avonlea, though I think that it would have benefitted from being split into two episodes because there's a lot going on. The first part- Sarah's rift with the family, her return to Montreal, and her father's death are all handled very well and the acting in these scenes is very good, making them believable and very touching. Unfortunately this doesn't leave much time to develop the plot in the second part of the episode- the fraudulent fortune teller and the kidnapping. This leads to it being rushed and containing a number of plot holes; for instance, apparently the two baddies joined the circus coming to Avonlea specifically to scam Sarah. But this plan hinges on the chance that Sarah- a girl in mourning and whose guardian is taking her back to Montreal- will actually visit the circus. This is explained away in an offhand remark by the fortune teller, who says that she knew a kid wouldn't be able to resist a circus. But as we saw, Sarah didn't even know about the circus until Peter told her, and then originally wasn't going to go. This doesn't seem like much to build a scam around. Had they split it into two episodes, I feel like they could have done a much better job with this part of the plot. Also, everything wraps up too quickly and easily because, as I said, there wasn't enough time to do these final scenes justice. But overall, a solid episode with some great character moments for Sarah, Alec, and Hetty especially.