But Richard could not tell this to his father, and Mr. Thornycroft one morning suddenly ordered his son Isaac abroad--to France, to Holland, to Flanders--to every place and town, in fact, where there was the least probability of Cyril's being found. The illicit business they had been engaged in caused them to have relations with several places on the Continent, and Cyril might be at any one of them. Isaac had but now returned--returned as he went, neither seeing nor hearing aught of Cyril. It was beginning to be more than singular. Surely if Cyril were within postal bounds of communication with England, he would write! The supposition, held from the first that he had gone off in the smuggling boats to the ship that night, and sailed with her on her homeward voyage, was far more probable than it might seem to strangers. Richard and Isaac had each done the same more than once; as, in his younger days had Mr. Thornycroft, thereby causing no end of alarm; to his wife. Cyril, it is true, was quite different in disposition, not at all given to wild rovings; but they had assumed the fact, and been easy. Richard, unwillingly, but with a view to ease her suspense, imparted the theory he had recently adopted to his sister; and she thought he might be right. As Mary Anne observed to her own heart, it was a miserable business altogether, looked at from any point. No direct confidence had been reposed in Isaac. Richard shrank from it. Isaac had many estimable qualities, although he helped to cheat Her Majesty's revenue, and thought it glorious fun. But he could not avoid entertaining suspicions of his brother, and one day he asked a question. "Never mind," shortly replied Richard; "Hunter got his deserts." It was no direct avowal, but Isaac drew his own conclusions, and was awfully shocked. He was as different from Richard in mind, in disposition, in the view he took of things in general, as light is from dark. The blow to Isaac was dreadful. He could not, so to say, lift up his head from it; it lay on him like an incubus. _Now_, the coldness with which Anna had ever since treated him was explained, satisfactorily enough to his own mind. As a murderer's brother, her avoidance of him was only natural. No doubt she was overwhelmed with horror at being tied to him. If he could but have divined that she suspected _him!_ But they were all going in for mistakes; Isaac amongst the rest. As if the real sorrow, the never-ceasing apprehension under which some of them lived, were not enough to bear, rumours were about to arise of an unreal one.