She turned once more to Hurd. "I read the account of the inquest on your father's death," she said, speaking very slowly, with her usual drawl, yet with a softer note in her voice, as though out of respect for the dead man. "Does it not seem very strange that the money was left untouched?" "Yes!" he answered. "Yet, after all, I don't know. You see, the governor must have closed with the fellow and shown fight before he got that knock on the head. If the thief was really only an ordinary tramp, he'd be scared to death at what he'd done, and probably bolt for his life without stopping to take anything with him." "Isn't it rather surprising to have tramps--in Thorpe?" she asked. "I have scarcely ever seen one," he answered. Wilhelmina turned her head slightly, so that she was now directly facing him. She looked him steadily in the eyes. "Has it occurred to you, Mr. Hurd," she asked, "that this young man may not have been a tramp at all, and that his visit to your father may have been on other business than that of robbery?" He hesitated for a moment. "My father's connexions with the outside world," he said slowly, "were so slight." "Yet it has occurred to you?" "Yes!" he admitted. "And have you come to any conclusion?" "None," he declared. "You carried out my instructions with regard to the papers and documents belonging to the estate?" "Certainly, madam," he answered. "Within five minutes of receiving your message, they were all locked up in the safe and the key handed to your messenger." "You did not go through them yourself?" she asked. "I did not," he answered, lying with admirable steadiness. "I scarcely felt that I was entitled to do so." "So that you could not tell if any were missing?" she continued. "I could not," he admitted. "Your father never spoke, then, of any connexions with people--outside Thorpe--likely to prove of a dangerous character?" The young man smiled. "My father," he said, "had not been farther than Loughborough for twenty years." There was a short silence. Wilhelmina, deliberately, and without any attempt at concealment, was meditatively watching the young man, studying his features with a half-contemptuous and yet searching interest. Perhaps the slightly curving lips, the hard intentness of her gaze, suggested that he was disbelieved. He lost colour and fidgeted about. It was a scrutiny not easy to bear, and he felt that it was going against him. Already she had written him down a liar. She spoke to him at last. If the silence had not ended soon, he would have made some blundering attempt to retrieve his position. She spoke just in time to avert such ignominy. "Mr. Hurd," she said, "the question of your father's successor is one that has doubtless occurred to you as it has to me. I trust that you will, at any rate, remain here. As to whether I can offer you your father's position in its entirety, I am not for the present assured."