“I am not open to that reproach. Dr. Upround, consider my instructions. I was strictly forbidden to disclose my object until certainty should be obtained. That being done, I have hastened to apprise you first of a result which is partly due to your own good offices. Shake hands, my dear sir, and acquit me of rudeness--the last thing of which I am capable.” The rector was mollified, and gave his hand to the gallant general factor. “Allow me to add my congratulations upon your wonderful success,” he said; “but would that I had known it some few hours sooner! It might have saved you a vast amount of trouble. I might have kept Robin well within your reach. I fear that he is now beyond it.” “I am grieved to hear you say so. But according to my last instructions, although he is in strict concealment, I can lay hands upon him when the time is ripe.” “I fear not. He sailed last night for the Continent, which is a vague destination, especially in such times as these. But perhaps that was part of your skillful contrivance?” “Not so. And for the time it throws me out. I have kept most careful watch on him. But the difficulty was that he might confound my vigilance with that of his enemies; take me for a constable, I mean. And perhaps he has done so, after all. Things have gone luckily for me in the main; but that murder came in most unseasonably. It was the very thing that should have been avoided. Sir Duncan will need all his influence there. Suppose for a moment that young Robin did not do it--” “Mr. Mordacks, you frighten me. What else could you suppose?” “Certainly--yes. A parishioner of yours, when not engaged unlawfully upon the high seas. We heartily hope that he did not do it, and we give him the benefit of the doubt; in which I shared largely, until it became so manifest that he was a Yordas. A Yordas has made a point of slaying his man--and sometimes from three to a dozen men--until within the last two generations. In the third generation the law revives, as is hinted, I think, in the Decalogue. In my professional course a large stock of hereditary trail--so to speak--comes before me. Some families always drink, some always steal, some never tell lies because they never know a falsehood, some would sell their souls for a sixpence, and these are the most respectable of any--” “My dear sir, my dear sir, I beg your pardon for interrupting you; but in my house the rule is to speak well of people, or else to say nothing about them.” “Then you must resign your commission, doctor; for how can you take depositions? But, as I was saying, I should have some hope of the innocence of young Robin if it should turn out that his father, Sir Duncan, has destroyed a good many of the native race in India. It may reasonably be hoped that he has done so, which would tend very strongly to exonerate his son. But the evidence laid before your Worship and before the coroner was black--black--black.”