"Indeed no. Nothing can ever have much effect on me again." "Don't you make too sure of that," said Duffham. "You've never felt quite sure about that death of your husband, up at Dales, have you? Thought there was something queer about it--eh?" "Yes," she said. "I have thought it." "Well, some of us have been looking into it a little. And we find--in short, we are not at all sure that--that Frank did die." "Oh!"--her hands lifting themselves in agitation--"what is it, sir? You have come to disclose to me that my husband was murdered." "The contrariness of woman!" exclaimed Duffham, giving the floor a thump with his cane. "Why, Mrs. Frank Radcliffe, I told you as plainly as I could speak, that it was _good_ news I brought. So good, that I hardly thought you could bear it with equanimity. Your husband was _not_ murdered." Poor Annet never answered a word to this. She only gazed at him. "And our opinion is that Frank did not die at all; at Dale's, or elsewhere. Some of us think he is alive still, and--now don't you drop down in a heap." "Please go on," she breathed, turning whiter than her own cap. "I--shall not drop down." "We have _reason_ to think it, Mrs. Frank. To think that he is alive, and well, and as sane in mind as you'd wish him to be. We believe it, ma'am; we all but know it." She let her head fall back in the chair. "You, I feel sure, would not tell me this unless you had good grounds for it, Mr. Duffham. Oh, if it may but be so! But--then--what of those cries that we heard?" she added, recollecting them. "I am sure they were his." "Very likely. Stephen may have had him shut up in the tower, and Frank cried out to let the world know he was there. Oh, I dare say that was it. I should not wonder, Mrs. Frank, but your husband may be here to-day." She rose from her seat, face lightening, hands trembling. She had caught sight through the window of a small knot of people approaching the house-door, and she recognized the cut of Frank's fair Saxon face amongst them, and the gleam of his golden hair. Duffham knew no more till she was in Frank's arms, sobbing and crying. * * * * * Ring! knock! shake! Shake! knock! ring! It was at the front-door of the Torr, and old Jones was doing it. He had gone there to apprehend Stephen Radcliffe, a whole posse of us at his tail--where we had no business to be--and the handcuffs in his side-pocket. By the afternoon of the day just told of, the parish was up in arms. Had Frank Radcliffe really risen from the dead, it could scarcely have caused more commotion. David Skate, for one, was frightened nearly out of his senses. Getting in from Alcester market, Sally accosted him, as he was crossing the yard, turning round from the pump to do it, where she was washing the summer cabbage for dinner. "The master be in there, sir." "What master?" asked David, halting on the way. "Why, the master hisself, Mr. Frank. He be come back again."