"And the gentleman came on horseback, sir, and was nigh upon fainting with the pain of his leg; and he sent me to call up master, and master helped him off the horse, and took the horse to the stable; and then the gentleman sat and rested in master's little parlour at the back of the house; and then they sent me for a fly, and I went to the Rose and Crown at Lisford, and fetched a fly; and before eight o'clock the gentleman went away." Before eight, and it was now past three. Mr. Carter looked at his watch while the girl made her confession. "And, oh, please don't tell master as I told you," she said; "oh, please don't, sir." There was no time to be lost, and yet the detective paused for a minute, thinking of what he had just heard. Had the girl told him the truth; or was this a story got up to throw him off the scent? The girl's terror of her master seemed genuine. She was crying now, real tears, that streamed down her pale cheeks, and wetted the handkerchief that covered the lower part of her face. "I can find out at the Rose and Crown whether anybody did go away in a fly," the detective thought. "Tell your master I've searched the place, and haven't found his friend," he said to the girl; "and that I haven't got time to wish him good morning." The detective said this as he went down stairs. The girl went into the little rustic porch with him, and directed him to the Rose and Crown at Lisford. He ran almost all the way to the little inn; for he was growing desperate now, with the idea that his man had escaped him. "Why, he can do anything with such a start," he thought to himself. "And yet there's his lameness—that'll go against him."