"May I ask whether Will Heyton told you I had done anything with him?" returned Mr. Castlemaine, in as sarcastic a tone as the very extreme limit of civility allowed him to use. "No. Will Heyton simply said the young man had disappeared; that he had been seen to enter that queer place, the Friar's Keep, at midnight, with, or closely following upon the Master of Greylands. When I inquired whether the whether the Master of Greylands was supposed to have caused him to disappear, old Will simply shrugged his shoulders, and looked more innocent than a baby. The story affected me, James Castlemaine; I went out from the breakfast-table, calling here, calling there, upon the people I had formerly known in the town. I got talking of it with them all, and heard the same tale over and over again. None accused you, mind; but I gather what their thoughts were: that you must have had a personal hand in the disappearance of Anthony; or, at least, a personal knowledge of what became of him." Mr. Castlemaine had listened in silence; perfectly unmoved. Squire Dobie regarded him keenly with his dark and searching eyes. "I know but little of the matter; less, apparently, than you know," he quietly said. "I am ready to tell you what that little is--but it will not help you, Squire Dobie. "What do you mean in saying less than I know?" "Because I never was near the Friar's Keep at all on that night. Your informants, I presume, must have been, by their assuming to know so much." "They know nothing. It is all conjecture." "Oh, all conjecture," returned Mr. Castlemaine, with the air of one suddenly enlightened. "And you come here and accuse me on conjecture? I ought to feel supremely indebted to you, Alfred Dobie." "What they do say--that is not conjecture--is, that it was you who preceded Basil's son into the Keep." "Who says it?" "Basil's son said it, and thought it: it was only that that took him in, poor fellow. The landlord of the inn here, John Bent, saw it and says it." "But John Bent was mistaken. And you have only his word, remember, for asserting what Basil's son saw or said." Squire Dobie paused, looking full at his host, as if he could gather by looks whether he was deceiving him or not. "Was it, or was it not you, who went into the Keep, James Castlemaine?" "It was not. I have said from the first, I repeat it to you now, that I was not near the Keep that night: unless you call Teague's Hutt near it. As a matter of fact, the Hutt is near it, of course; but we estimate distances relatively----" "I know how near it is," interrupted Squire Dobie. "I came round that way just now, up the lane; and took sounding of the places."