Everything had contributed to the delusion, before life and after death. The face might have been anybody's for all the signs of recognition left in it. They wore, and only they, each a black dress dinner-suit, and Cyril, in his forgetfulness had put away his purse and watch. His money--he generally carried it so--was loose in his pockets: how were they to know that the same custom was not followed by Hunter? The white pocket-handkerchief happened to bear no mark, and his linen was not disturbed. Nothing was taken off him but his upper clothes, the coat and the above-said dinner-suit. It was an exceptional death, you see, not a pleasant one to handle, and they just put a shroud over the under clothes, and so buried him. But for that would have been seen on the shirt the full mark--"Cyril Thornycroft." Who shall attempt to describe the silence of horror that fell on the church porch after the revelation? Richard quitted his seat and stood upright, looking out, as it seemed; and his sister's head then sought a leaning-place against the cold trellis-work. "How was it you never wrote to me?" at length asked Robert Hunter, in a low voice. "Had you done so, this mystery would have been cleared up." "Wrote to _you?_" wailed Richard. "Do you forget we thought you were here?" stamping his foot on the sod of the churchyard. "I can hardly understand it yet," mused Robert Hunter. Richard Thornycroft turned and touched his sister. "Let us go home, Mary Anne. We have heard enough." Without a word of dissent or approval, she rose and put her arm within Richard's; her face white and rigid as it had been at the coroner's inquest. Hunter spoke then. "But, Mary Anne--what I wanted to say to you--I have not yet said a word of it." "I cannot talk to-night," she shuddered. "I cannot--I cannot." "Then--I suppose--I must stay another day," he rejoined, wondering privately what would be said and thought of him in London. "May I come to the Red Court to-morrow?" "If you will," answered Richard. "No necessity for concealment now. I absolve you from your oath." But Mary Anne saw further than either of them; saw that it would not do. Richard walked forward, but she remained, and touched Mr. Hunter on the arm. "No, Robert, it must not be. You must still be in this neighbourhood-- for a time at any rate--as dead and buried." "Why? Far better to let them know I have not been murdered: and set their suspicions at rest." "That you have not, but that another has," she returned, resentfully. "Would you have them rake up the matter, and hold a second inquest, and so set them upon my unfortunate brother Richard? His punishment, as it is, will be sufficiently dreadful and lasting." "Do not speak to me in that tone of reproach," was the pained rejoinder. "You may be sure that I deeply sympathize and grieve with you all. I will continue to conceal myself: but how shall I see you? One more day, and business will enforce my return to London."