And it required several questions and guesses on his part to draw out from me the account of the accident to Sarah, and the inevitable suspicions as to how it came about. Mr. Rayner turned quite pale when I came to my slipping on the stairs and catching my foot in the string, and he looked up and out of the window from under his frowning brows with an expression of hard fury that made me instinctively move away from him on my chair, it was so terrible, so merciless. And I had still so much that I must tell him! It was with averted head that I whispered all the suspicious things I had seen and heard connecting Sarah and Tom Parkes with the Denham Court burglary--my view of Tom carrying something across the lawn; his returning with Sarah; the fact of two men in a cart having been seen outside--I did not say by whom, but I fancy Mr. Rayner guessed; my seeing the brown portmanteau inside the back-door; and lastly my discovery of the portmanteau in the cellar under the store-room, and my recognition of it and of the bracelet I took out of it at haphazard as having both come from Denham Court. Mr. Rayner listened with the deepest interest, but with some incredulity. “My dear child, it is impossible--at least I hope from my soul it may turn out to be so! Poor old Sarah is, I acknowledge, the worst-tempered and most vindictive woman alive. But the accomplice of thieves! I cannot believe it.” He got up and walked about the room, questioned me again closely, and then remained for a few minutes in deep thought. “She would never dare! Sarah is afraid of me, and to bring stolen goods into my house would be a greater liberty than even an old servant would take, I think.” “Ah, but you were away, Mr. Rayner! She may have reckoned upon getting the things out of the house before your return,” I suggested. “And Tom Parkes, too, a fellow I have a great liking for, and whom I have trusted with money too over and over again,” he went on to himself, scarcely noticing my interruption. I wondered Mr. Rayner did not ask me for the store-room keys and go himself to prove at least one part of my story; but I did not like to suggest it, half fearing, coward that I was, that he would ask me to go with him to that dreadful cellar. “Don’t say a word about this to any one, child,” said he at last. “I must sift the matter to the very bottom. It is possible that they may both have been cheated by some clever knave into assisting him innocently. But didn’t you say you saw Tom Parkes carrying what you took for the portmanteau on Tuesday night?” “Yes, Mr. Rayner.”