"Well"--I hesitated--"as to the letters, it seemed to me to be an unaccountable thing that the traveller could not let even one person see him in private, to hear his personal testimony: say Mr. Delorane, or a member of the Brook family. The Squire went hot over it: he asked St. George whether the fellow thought men of honour carried handcuffs in their pockets. Again, the stranger said he should be at liberty to come forward later, but he never has come." Darbyshire smoked on. "I'd give this full of gold," he broke the silence with, touching the big bowl of the clay pipe, "to know where Brook vanished to." My restless fingers had strayed to his old leaden tobacco jar, on the table by me, pressing down its heavy lid and lifting it again. When I next spoke he might have thought the words came out of the tobacco, they were so low. "Do you think St. George had a grudge against Brook, Mr. Darbyshire?--that he wished him out of the way?" Darbyshire gave me a look through the wreathing smoke. "Speak out, lad. What have you on your mind?" "St. George said, you know, that he stopped the gig in Dip Lane at the turning which would lead to Evesham, for Brook--I mean the traveller--to get out. But I thought I heard it stop before that. I was almost sure of it." "Stop where?" "Just about opposite the gap in the hedge; hardly even quite as far as that. We had not reached the turning to Evesham ourselves when I heard this. The gig seemed to come to a sudden standstill. I said so to Tod at the time." "Well?" "Why should he have stopped just at the gap?" "How can I tell, lad?" "I suppose he could not have damaged Brook? Struck him a blow to stun him--or--or anything of that?" "And if he had? If he (let us put it so) _killed_ him, Johnny, what did he do with--what was left of him? What could he do with it?" Darbyshire paused in his smoking. I played unconsciously with the jar. He was looking at me, waiting to be answered. "I suppose--if that pond had been dragged--Dip Pond--if it were to be dragged now--that--that--nothing would be found----" "Hush, lad," struck in Darbyshire, all hastily. "Walls have ears, people tell us: and we must not even whisper grave charges without sufficient grounds; grounds that we could substantiate." True: and of course he did right to stop me. * * * * * But we cannot stay rebellious thought: and no end of gruesome ideas connected with that night in Dip Lane steal creepingly at times into my mind. If I am not mistaken they steal also into Darbyshire's. All the same they may be but phantoms of the imagination, and St. George may have been a truthful, an innocent man. You must decide for yourselves, if you can, on which side the weight of evidence seems to lie. I have told you the story as it happened, and I cannot clear up for you what has never yet been cleared for Timberdale. It remains an unsolved mystery. SANDSTONE TORR. I.