John Trevanion remained in the empty house. It had seemed that morning as if nothing could be more miserable: but it was more miserable now, when every cheerful element had gone out of it, and not even the distant sound of a child’s voice, or Rosalind’s dress, with its faint sweep of sound, was to be heard in the vacancy. After he had seen them off he walked home through the village with a very heavy heart. In front of the little inn there was an unusual stir: a number of rustic people gathered about the front of the house, surrounding two men of an aspect not at all rustical, who were evidently questioning the slow but eager rural witnesses. “It must ha’ been last night as he went,” said one. “I don’t know when he went,” said another, “but he never come in to his supper, I’ll take my oath o’ that.” They all looked somewhat eagerly towards John, who felt himself compelled to interfere, much as he disliked doing so. “What is the matter?” he asked, and then from half a dozen eager mouths the story rushed out. “A gentleman” had been living at the Red Lion for some time back. Nobody, it appeared, could make out what he wanted there; everybody (they now said) suspected him from the first. He would lie in bed all morning, and then get up towards afternoon. Nothing more was necessary to demonstrate his immorality, the guilt of the man. He went out trapesing in the woods at night, but he wasn’t no poacher, for he never seemed to handle a gun nor know aught about it. He would turn white when anybody came in and tried a trigger, or to see if the ball was drawn. No, he wasn’t no poacher: but he did always be in the woods o’ night, which meant no good, the rustics thought. There were whisperings aside, and glances, as this description was given, which were not lost upon John, but his attention was occupied in the first place by the strangers, who came forward and announced that they were detectives in search of an offender, a clerk in a merchant’s office, who had absconded, having squandered a considerable sum of his master’s money. “But this is an impossible sort of place for such a culprit to have taken refuge in,” John said, astounded. The chief of the two officers stepped out in front of the other, and asked if he might say a few words to the gentleman, then went on accompanying John, as he mechanically continued his way, repressing all appearance of the extraordinary commotion thus produced in his mind. “You see, sir,” said the man, “it’s thought that the young fellow had what you may call a previous connection here.” “Ah! was he perhaps related to some one in the village? I never heard his name.” (The name was Everard, and quite unknown to the neighborhood.) “No, Mr. Trevanion,” said the other, significantly, “not in the village.” “Where, then--what do you mean? What could the previous connection that brought him here be?”