When the _instruction_ was terminated, and all had been investigated that could be investigated, there was a complete failure in every attempt to trace the criminal. The French law, so suspicious and peremptory, failed just as English criminal proceedings, so much more halting and imperfect, so often fail. Antoine’s _alibi_ seemed complete. There was no evidence to be found which connected him with the incidents of the fatal night. Mr Goulburn’s English cheque-book was found indeed, torn up and defaced, on the road by which he must have travelled to the _chef-lieu_ of the department; but the culprit, whoever he had been, would most likely have travelled by the same road. The only other thing which that culprit had dropped was the morocco letter-case which Helen had brought from her father’s room at Fareham on the night of their flight. After all the examinations were over, this was restored to her. She came in, carrying it in her hand, to the library where Sir John was spending his morning. It was nearly three weeks after her father’s death, and hostile though Sir John was, both to the dead father and the living daughter, it was partly on their account that his visit had been prolonged. He did not choose to leave them in possession of the field, and he was anxious to save Charley, as he said to himself, from the clutches of the girl, who, being Goulburn’s daughter, was no doubt an adventuress too. A violent controversy on this subject had, indeed, been going on between the two men, when Helen softly opened the door and went in upon them. Sir John was seated at a writing-table with a flushed and angry countenance, while Charley, not less excited, paced about the library. It was a large, long room on the upper floor, with a row of long windows looking out upon the woods and the park. The two men, whose angry voices she had heard without paying much attention to them as she approached, suddenly stopped with embarrassed faces as she made her appearance at the door. Sir John, with an air half of anger, half of surprise, pushed back his chair from the table and looked at her, while Charley hurried to her side and took her hand to lead her forward. “Did you want me, Helen?” he said, in a tone doubly tender, drawing her hand within his arm. At this little exhibition Sir John uttered an angry “humph!” “I came to bring you this,” said Helen. “I do not know what it is best to do with it. We brought it out of Fareham with us. Papa always said it was Janey’s fortune. But if it is true, as you say, that he owes people money--yes, I know it is true; he told me so himself--this ought, perhaps, to be taken to pay some of them. As for Janey, she is very little, she does not want much now, and I have a hundred a-year--that will be enough for her and me.’ “Let me see it,” said Sir John, with some eagerness.