He looked at Henry Dunbar as if scarcely knowing how to finish his sentence. "I don't know what to think," exclaimed the banker. "Remember, I am almost as much a stranger in this country as if I had never set foot on British soil before to-day. This man may have played me a trick, and gone off for some purpose of his own, though I don't know what purpose. He could have best served his own interests by staying with me. On the other hand, something may have happened to him. And yet what _can_ have happened to him?" The landlord suggested that the missing man might have fallen down in a fit, or might have loitered somewhere or other until after dark, and then lost his way, and wandered into a mill-stream. There was many a deep bit of water between Winchester Cathedral and the Ferns, the landlord said. "Let a search be made at daybreak to-morrow morning," exclaimed Mr. Dunbar. "I don't care what it costs me, but I am determined this business shall be cleared up before I leave Winchester. Let every inch of ground between this and the Ferns be searched at daybreak to-morrow morning; let——" He did not finish the sentence, for there was a sudden clamour of voices, and trampling, and hubbub in the hall below. The landlord opened the door, and went out upon the broad landing-place, followed by Mr. Dunbar. The hall below was crowded by the servants of the place, and by eager strangers who had pressed in from outside; and the two men standing at the top of the stairs heard a hoarse murmur; which seemed all in one voice, though it was in reality a blending of many voices; and which grew louder and louder, until it swelled into the awful word "Murder!" Henry Dunbar heard it and understood it, for his handsome face grew of a bluish white, like snow in the moonlight, and he leaned his hand upon the oaken balustrade. The landlord passed his guest, and ran down the stairs. It was no time for ceremony. He came back again in less than five minutes, looking almost as pale as Mr. Dunbar. "I'm afraid your friend—your servant—is found, sir," he said. "You don't mean that he is——" "I'm afraid it is so, sir. It seems that two Irish reapers, coming from Farmer Matfield's, five mile beyond St. Cross, stumbled against a man lying in a little streamlet under the trees——" "Under the trees! Where?" "In the very place where you parted from this Mr. Wilmot, sir." "Good God! Well?" "The man was dead, sir; quite dead. They carried him to the Foresters' Arms, sir, as that was the nearest place to where they found him; and there's been a doctor sent for, and a deal of fuss: but the doctor—Mr. Cricklewood, a very respectable gentleman, sir—says that the man had been lying in the water hours and hours, and that the murder had been done hours and hours ago." "The murder!" cried Henry Dunbar; "but he may not have been murdered! His death may have been accidental. He wandered into the water, perhaps."