A fortnight had slipped away since Hubert Dorrien's disappearance, and still the stranger stayed on at "The Silver Fleece," in Battisford. Those who had at first marvelled what attraction their dull little town had for one of his stamp had quite ceased speculating as to his pursuits and identity. As to the former, they had come to the conclusion that he was an antiquary of some sort--a professor most likely, and a member of some learned society--who was engaged on a work on the curiosities and antiquities of the neighbourhood, which he spent long days in exploring, asking many questions about it, and when not thus employed, he would shut himself up and sit for hours writing. As to the latter, well, it didn't signify. Anyone could see that he was a gentleman born, and sure enough, didn't he pay his way, and wasn't he pleasant-spoken and friendly with everybody? So "The Silver Fleece" was right glad of its guest, and would fain keep him as long as he chose to stay. He got his letters, too, quite regularly, addressed to Robert Durnford, Esq, and now and then a learned looking pamphlet. What more could Battisford desire in the way of vouchers for his respectability? In Battisford, sooner than in Wandsborough, Hubert Dorrien's sad fate ceased to be a nine days' wonder. It was talked of occasionally on market days by farmers assembled at their one o'clock dinner in the coffee-room at "The Silver Fleece," and in the evening sometimes the loquacious waiter would entertain a batch of newly arrived "commercials," over their hot spirits and water, with a highly graphic narrative of the event, to which the accompaniment of the supernatural lent unusual spice. Sometimes in these conversations the stranger would join, putting in a careless remark or two, or asking a question, but never by any chance would he attempt avoidance of the subject. And what was Roland Dorrien's real frame of mind, having committed a ruthless and what the world might call a cowardly murder! It is a strange thing to have to record, but the fact is he felt no great compunction. He had spent some of the most impressionable years of his life in the Far West, where human life was held at the lowest possible valuation, and he had known of at least a dozen instances where men had been shot dead upon far less provocation than he had received. Besides, he had not particularly meant to kill the other; unfortunately, the mouth of the fissure had been inconveniently close.