About that time a stranger arrived at Carnesford. He announced that he was a carpenter from the North, and that he suffered from weak lungs, and had been recommended to live down South. After staying for a week at the "Carne's Arms," he stated that he liked the village so much that he should settle there if he saw a chance of making a livelihood, and as it happened that there was no carpenter in the village, the idea was received with favour, and a week later he was established in a cottage that happened to be vacant. As he was a man who seemed to have travelled about England a good deal, and was well spoken and informed, he soon took a good position in the place, and was even admitted to form one of the party in the snuggery, where he would talk well upon occasions, but was specially popular as an excellent listener. When spring came there was a fresh sensation. The gardener at The Hold, in digging up some ground at the edge of the shrubbery, to plant some rhododendrons there, turned up the missing watch and jewellery of Margaret Carne. It was all buried together a few inches below the soil, without any wrapper or covering of any kind. Captain Hendricks arrived at Carnesford as soon as the news of the discovery reached him. Reginald Carne was himself away, having been absent ever since the trial took place. Most of the servants had left at once; the old cook and a niece of hers alone remaining in charge, and two stablemen from the garden also staying in the house. Nothing came of the discovery; but it, of course, renewed the interest in the mystery of Margaret Carne's death, and the general opinion was that it was fortunate indeed for Ronald Mervyn that the discovery had not been made before his trial, for it completely demolished the theory that the murder was the work of a burglar. It was possible, of course, that such a man, knowing the active hue and cry that would be set on foot, and that it would be dangerous to offer the jewellery for sale, and still more dangerous to keep it about him, had at once buried it, intending to go back some day to recover it, for, as Reginald stated at the trial, the missing jewels were worth fifteen hundred pounds. But had they been so hidden they would assuredly have been put in a box or some sort of cover that would protect them from the damp, and not have been merely thrust into the ground. Altogether the discovery greatly heightened, instead of diminishing, the impression that the murder was an act of revenge and not the outcome of robbery; and the cloud over Ronald Mervyn became heavier rather than lighter in consequence.