"Have you secured him? If it really is murder, he must answer for it. Where is he?" Mr. Barley spoke a passionate word. It was a positive fact—account for it, any one that can—that until that moment he had never given a thought to the securing of George Heneage. "What a fool I have been!" he exclaimed, "what an idiot! He has had time to escape." "He cannot have escaped far." "Stay here, will you, Martin. I'll send the labourers after him; he may be hiding in the wood until the night's darker." Mr. Edwin Barley hastened from the hall, and the clergyman bent over the table again. I had my face turned to him, and was scarcely conscious, until it had passed, of something dark that glided from the back of the hall, and followed Mr. Barley out. With him gone, to whom I had taken so unaccountable a dislike and dread, it was my favourable moment for escape; I seemed to fear him more than poor Philip King on the table. But nervous terror held possession of me still, and in moving I cried out in spite of myself. The clergyman looked round. "I declare it is little Miss Hereford!" he said, very kindly, as he took my hand. "What brought you there, my dear?" I sobbed out the explanation. That I had been pushed into the corner by the table, and was afraid to move. "Don't tell, sir, please! Mr. Edwin Barley might be angry with me. Don't tell him I was there." "He would not be angry at a little girl's very natural fears," answered Mr. Martin, stroking my hair. "But I will not tell him. Will you stay by your aunt, Mrs. Edwin Barley?" "Yes, please, sir." "But where _is_ Mrs. Barley?" he resumed, as he led me towards the stairs. "I was wondering, too," interposed Charlotte Delves, who stood at the dining-room door. "A minute ago she was still sitting there. I turned into the room for a moment, and when I came back she was gone." "She must have gone upstairs, Miss Delves." "I suppose she has, Mr. Martin," was Miss Delves's reply. But a thought came over me that it must have been Mrs. Edwin Barley who had glided out at the hall-door. And, in point of fact, it was. She was sought for upstairs, and could not be found; she was sought for downstairs, all in vain. Whither had she gone? On what errand was she bent? One of those raw, damp fogs, prevalent in the autumn months, had come on, making the air wet, as if with rain, and she had no out-door things on, no bonnet, and her black silk dress had a low body and short sleeves. Was she with her husband, searching the wood for George Heneage? The dark oak-door that shut out the passage leading to the domains of the servants was pushed open, and Jemima's head appeared at it. I ran and laid hold of her. "Oh, Jemima, let me stay by you!" "Hark!" she whispered, putting her arm round me. "There are horses galloping up to the house." Two police-officers, mounted. They gave their horses in charge to one of the men-servants, and came into the hall, the scabbards of their swords clanking against the steps.