"And a fine fright that fall put us into, sir! We thought he was dead. Jim went galloping off for the doctor, and me and Sally and Miss Carey stayed bathing his head on that there very ironing-board, a-trying to find out what the damage was." "And the children: where were they?" "All round us here in the kitchen, sir, sobbing and staring." "Meanwhile the garden-room was deserted. No one went into it, as far as you know." "Nobody at all, sir. When Sally ran in to look at the fire, she found it had gone clean out. The doctor had been there then, and Master Richard was in bed. A fine pickle Sally found the room in, with the scraps of paper, and that, blown about the floor. The glass-doors was standing stark staring open to the wind." "And, I presume, you gathered up some of these scraps of paper, and lighted the fire with them, Sally?" Dr. Knox did not appear to look at Sally as he spoke, but he saw and noted every movement. He saw that her hand shook so that she could scarcely hold the iron. "Has it never struck you, Sally, that you might have put the bank-note into the grate with these scraps of paper, and burnt it?" he continued. "Innocently, of course. That is how I think the note must have disappeared. Had the wind taken it into the garden, it would most probably have been found." Sally flung her apron over her face and herself on to a chair, and burst into a howl. Eliza looked at her. "If you think there is a probability that this was the case, Sally, you must say so," continued Dr. Knox. "You will never be blamed, except for not having spoken." "'Twas only yesterday I asked Sally whether she didn't think this was the way it might have been," said the cook in a low tone to Dr. Knox. "She have seemed so put out, sir, for a week past." "I vow to goodness that I never knew I did it," sobbed Sally. "All the while the bother was about, and Miss Carey, poor young lady, was off her head, it never once struck me. What Eliza and me thought was, that some tramps must have come round the side of the house and got in at the open glass-doors, and stole it. The night after Miss Carey left with her aunt, I was thinking about her as I lay in bed, and wondering whether the mistress would send the police after her or not, when all of a sudden the thought flashed across me that it might have gone into the fire with the other pieces of paper. Oh mercy, I wish I was somewhere!" "What became of the ashes out of the grate?--the cinders?" asked Dr. Knox. "They're all in the ash-place, sir, waiting till the garden's ready for them," sobbed Sally. * * * * *