De Chevron was a quick observer, and noticed our furtive glances towards the cupboard. Then fixing his spy-glass in his eye, he looked in the same direction; but either saw or affected to see nothing. Afterwards he got up and walked about the room, conversing the while, and in so doing passed several times in front of the cupboard, looking in casually as he passed. I felt sure that he must have seen the image, though there was nothing in his manner that I could discover at all confused or unusual. I believe he would have braved the matter out if I had told him to his face that it was I myself who had stolen the image after I had overheard with my own ears this villainous plot against poor John. He was just the sort of man who would have looked me full in the face and denied ever in his life having been in Madge Mandrake's cottage. He would have tried to make me believe that I had been the victim of some fearful delusion from my over-excited fears or what not, that the image was not of his making; would have denied ever having set eyes on it before. Nor would, in all probability, have seen any likeness whatever to John Archer, and would have treated as nothing more than a coincidence the fact of John's gun and the loss of his thumb occurring at the same time that the gun and thumb of the waxen figure were damaged by old Madge's pin thrust. He would have asked me if I thought him capable of believing in such trumpery, and would have tried to laugh me out of my superstition. All this I should have expected from him, such was his amount of assurance. Once I had it on the tip of my tongue to ask him what he thought of the image, and if he knew anyone it resembled; and would have done it, too, as I was anxious to observe what effect a sudden allusion to the image would have had upon him, but at that moment my father, who knew nothing of the affair of the waxen image, entered the room, and the conversation took another direction. Shortly afterwards he left the house, promising to call again after his return from London. As he had been so particular in telling us of his intended visit to London, of course, I believed him. What reason could I have had for not doing so? Nevertheless, it proved to be all a falsehood. He never had any intention of going to London at all; and never left the village.