"No, I never suspected Sir Dace," Jack answered. "I suspected some one else--Verena." "No!" "I did. About half-past eight o'clock that night, Ferrar had seen a young lady--or somebody dressed as one--watching Pym's house from the opposite entry: just where, it now appears, he later saw Sir Dace. Ferrar thought it was Verena Fontaine. A little later, in fact just after the calamity must have occurred, Alfred Saxby also saw a young lady running from the direction of the house, whom he also took to be Verena. Ferrar and I came to the same conclusion--I don't know about Saxby--that Verena must have been present when it happened. _I_ thought that, angry at the state Pym was in, she might have given him a push in her vexation, perhaps inadvertently, and that he fell. Who knew?" "But Verena was elsewhere that evening, you know; at a concert." "I knew she said so; but I did not believe it. Of course I know now that both Ferrar and Saxby were mistaken; that it was somebody else they saw, who bore, one must imagine, some general resemblance to her." "Well, I think you might have known better," cried the Squire. "Yes, I suppose I ought to. But, before the inquest had terminated, I chanced to be alone with Verena; and her manner--nay, her words, two or three she said--seemed to imply her guilt, and also a consciousness that I must be aware of it. I had no doubt at all from that hour." "And is it for that reason, consideration for her, that you have partially allowed suspicion to rest upon yourself?" pursued the Squire, hotly. "Of course. How could I be the means of throwing it upon a defenceless girl?" "Well, John Tanerton, you are a chivalrous goose!" "Verena must have known the truth all along." "_That's_ not probable," contended the Squire. "And Chandler wants to know what is to be done." "Nothing all all, that I can see," answered Jack. "Sir Dace is not in a condition to have trouble thrown upon him." Good Jack! generous Jack! There are not many such self-denying spirits in the world. And what would have been done is beyond guessing, had Sir Dace not solved the difficulty himself. Solved it by dying. But I must first tell of a little matter that happened. Although we had heard what we had, one could not treat the man cavalierly, and the Squire--just as good at heart as Jack--went up to make inquiries at Oxlip Grange, as usual. One day he and Colonel Letsom strolled up together, and were asked to walk in. Sir Dace wished to see them. "If ever you saw a living skeleton, it's what he is," cried the Squire to us when he came home. "It is in the nature of the disease, I believe, that he should be. Dress him up in his shroud, and you'd take him for nothing but bones." Sir Dace was in the easy-chair by his bedroom fire, Coralie sitting with him. By his side stood a round table with papers and letters upon it.