"I want to find Miss Delves. Where is she?" "In master's study. You can go in. Don't you know which it is? It's that room built out at the back, half-way up the first flight of stairs. You can see the door from here." In the study sat Mr. Barley and Mr. Edwin Barley at breakfast, Charlotte Delves serving them. I gave her my aunt's message, but was nearly scared out of my senses at being laid hold of by Mr. Edwin Barley. "Go up at once, Charlotte, and see what it is," he said. "How do you say, little one—that her throat is bad?" "Yes, sir; she cannot speak well." "No wonder; she has only herself to thank," he muttered, as Charlotte Delves left the room. "The wonder would be if she were not ill." "Why?" asked Mr. Barley, curiously, lifting his head. "Oh, she got frightened last night when poor Philip was brought in, and ran out in the fog after me with nothing on." He released my arm, and Mr. Barley put a chair for me beside him, and gave me some breakfast. I had taken quite a liking to him, he was so simple and kind. He told me he had no little girls or boys of his own, and his wife was always ill, unable to go out. "Mrs. Edwin Barley appears exceedingly poorly," said Charlotte Delves, when she returned. "Lowe said he should be here this morning; he shall see her when he comes. She must have taken cold." Scarcely had she spoken when the surgeon arrived. Mr. Edwin Barley went upstairs with him. Mr. Lowe came down alone afterwards, and I caught a moment to speak to him when no one was listening. "Will my Aunt Selina get well, sir?" "I do not know, my dear," he answered, turning upon me his grave face. "I fear she is going to be very ill." Sunday came to an end; oh, such a dull day it had seemed!—and Monday morning dawned. It was Selina's birthday: she was twenty-one. Nothing could be heard of George Heneage. The police scoured the country; handbills were printed, offering a reward for his apprehension; no effort was left untried, but he was not found. Opinions were freely bandied about: some said he must have escaped in the fog, and got off by the railway from Nettleby, or by the other line beyond Hallam; others thought he was lying concealed near the spot still. Mr. Edwin Barley was in great anger at his escape, and avowed he would pursue him to the death. Not on this day, but the following one, Tuesday, Mr. Heneage's father came to the house—a fine old gentleman, with white hair. Mr. Lowe corrected me for calling him old, and said he could not be much more than fifty. I had not then the experience to know that while young people call fifty old, those past that age are apt to style it young. I saw him twice as he went along the passages, but was not close to him. He was a courteous, gentlemanly man, but seemed bowed down with grief. It was said he could not understand the calamity at all, and decidedly refused to believe in his son's guilt. If the shot had in truth proceeded from him, the gun must have gone off by accident.