Lady Jane and Lady Cheriton wanted to take her away after this, but she insisted upon remaining. “I wish to hear every word,” she said. They submitted, and the three women, robed in densest black, sat in a little group behind the Coroner till the end of that day’s inquiry. No new facts were elicited from any of the witnesses, and nothing had resulted from the elaborate search made, not only throughout Lord Cheriton’s domain, but in the neighbourhood. No suspicious prowlers had been heard of. The gipsies who had contributed to the gaiety of the wedding day had been ascertained to have left the Isle of Purbeck a fortnight before the murder, and to be delighting the larger world between Portsmouth and Havant. Nothing had been discovered; no sale of revolver or gun to any questionable purchaser at Dorchester; no indication, however slight, which might put a keen-witted detective upon the trail. Mr. Churton confessed himself completely at fault. The jury drove to Cheriton House to view the body, and the inquest was adjourned for a fortnight, in the expectation that some discovery might be made in the interim. The funeral would take place at the usual time; there was nothing now to hinder the victim being laid in his last resting-place in the old Saxon church at Milbrook. Bills offering a reward of £500 for any information leading to the discovery of the murderer were all over the village, and in every village and town within a radius of forty miles. The stimulus of cupidity was not wanting to sharpen the rural wit. Mr. Churton shook his head despondently when he talked over the inquest with Lord Cheriton later in the day, and owned himself “out of it.” “I have been in many dark cases, my Lord,” he said, “and I’ve had many hard nuts to crack, but this beats ’em all. I can’t see my way to making anything of it; and unless you can furnish me with any particulars of the poor young gentleman’s past life, of an enlightening character, I don’t see much hope of getting ahead.” “You stick to your idea of the murder being an act of revenge?” “What other reason could there be for such a murder?” That question seemed unanswerable, and Lord Cheriton let it pass. Matthew Dalbrook and his elder son were to dine with him that evening, in order to talk quietly and calmly over the terrible event of last week, and the bearing which it must have upon his daughter’s future life. Lady Cheriton and Lady Jane Carmichael had lived entirely on the upper floor, taking such poor apologies for meals as they could be induced to take in her ladyship’s morning-room. That closed door at the eastern end of the corridor exercised its solemn influence upon the whole house. Those mourning women never went in or out without looking that way—and again and again through the long still days they visited that chamber of death, carrying fairest blooms of stephanotis or camellia, whitest rose-buds, waxen lilies; kneeling in silent prayer beside that white bed.