—and yet there had been a sort of feudal dignity about their manner of departing. But this unknown sojourner of a day, who had known hardly a soul in the parish, who had loved nothing of all that country-side except eighteen little holes in the ground, what mourning could there be for him—the body so mangled, the soul whose existence he had denied? One understood why people wanted to be cremated. While we keep all our seriousness for our frivolities, what wonder that men feel a sense of disproportion about the traditional solemnities of interment? With the villagers, indeed, it was different—you might almost say that the hour of their funerals was the hour they lived for. It made them one with the earth they had tilled and furrowed; it gave them, at last, a permanent tenure among their own immemorial fields. “Man that is born of woman is full of sorrow and hath but a short time”—they had learned, unconsciously, to measure their lives by the secular oaks in the great park, by the weather-beaten antiquity of the village church itself. But this strange race of light-hearted invaders, to whom each spot of ground was no more than a good lie or a bad one, what part had they in the communal life of these retired valleys? It meant nothing to them. We have been following the service with Gordon’s eyes; Reeves, it is probable, was lost in speculation as to the donor of the mysterious wreath, and Carmichael was doubtless reminded of a thousand things. But it was over at last, and Reeves, eager to get back to business, implored Carmichael to explain his hints about the disappearance of the cipher. “Wait till we get back to your room,” was the only answer. And, when the desired haven was reached, “Have another look among those papers, and make certain you didn’t pass it over by mistake.” “Good Lord,” said Reeves suddenly, “here it is! But I swear it wasn’t when I looked before. I say, Carmichael, have you been playing the funny ass with the thing?” “No,” said Carmichael, “I haven’t.” “Who has, then?” “That’s the point. I should be glad if I were in a position to enlighten you. You see, I know the maid was blameless as regards that piece of paper. She only does the rooms early in the morning; now, I came in after breakfast, when you’d gone off to Binver, to have another look at the cipher and see if I could make anything of it by inspection. And it was still there.” “And you’re sure you didn’t take it away with you?” “Positive. Now, observe this: that document must have been taken away while you and Gordon were both at Binver, while I was over at the station.” “But how did it get back there?” “It was put back there. And it was put back there, not during luncheon, for I had another look afterwards, but while we were down at the funeral. It follows that none of our party this afternoon has been meddling with your papers—I’m glad to think, for example, that the Secretary escapes suspicion.”