"Well, Major," replied Cleek, "I hate to destroy any man's illusions and to besmirch any man's reputation, but--_que voulez vous_? If Mr. Tom Farrow went out upon that moor after the mare was stolen, and went without giving an alarm or saying a word to anybody, then in my private opinion your precious trainer is nothing in the world but a precious double-faced, double-dealing, dishonourable blackguard, who treacherously sold you to the enemy and got just what he deserved by way of payment." Major Norcross made no reply. He simply screwed up his lips until they were a mere pucker of little creases, and looked round at his wife with something of the pain and hopeless bewilderment of an unjustly scolded child. "You know, Seton, it was what Captain MacTavish suggested," ventured she, gently and regretfully. "And when two men of intellect----" Then she sighed and let the rest go by default. "Demmit, Mary, you don't mean to suggest that I haven't any, do you?" "No, dear; but----" "Buts be blowed! Don't you think I know a man when I run foul of him? And if ever there was a square-dealing, honest chap on this earth----Look here, Mr. Cleek. Gad! you may be a bright chap and all that, but you'll have to give me something a blessed sight stronger than mere suspicion before you can make me believe a thing like that about Tom Farrow." "I am not endeavouring to make you believe it, Major. I am merely showing you what would certainly be the absolute truth of the matter _if_ Tom Farrow had done what you suggested, and gone out on that moor alone and without a word or a cry when he discovered that the animal was stolen. But, my dear sir, I incline to the belief that he never did go out there after any person or any living thing whatsoever." "Then, dash it, sir, how in thunder are you going to explain his being there at all?" "By the simple process, Major, of suggesting that he was on his way back to the Abbey at the time he encountered his unknown assailant. In other words, that he had not only never returned to the place after you and her ladyship saw him leaving it at a quarter to eleven, but was never permitted to do so." "Oh, come, I say! That's laying it on too thick. How the dickens can you be sure of such a thing as that?" "I'm not. I am merely laying before you the only two things possible to explain his presence there. One or the other of them is the plain and absolute truth. If the man went out there _after_ the filly was stolen he is a scoundrel and a liar. If he is innocent, he met with his injuries on the way back to his quarters above Highland Lassie's stall."