Mark had risen, and stood with doubtful gaze, wondering, no doubt, what the visit could mean. "I be but middlin', sir," he answered, putting his pipe in the corner of the hearth. "We ain't none of us too well, I reckon, with this uncertainty hanging over our minds, as to poor Master Rupert." "It is the business I have come about. Sit down, Ann," Mr. Peterby added, settling himself on the bench opposite Mark. "I want to ask you a few questions." "Yes, sir," she meekly answered. But her hands shook, and she nearly dropped the work she had taken up. "There's nothing to be afraid of," cried Mr. Peterby, noticing the emotion. "I am not going to accuse you of putting him out of sight, as it seems busy tongues are accusing somebody else. On the night the encounter took place between Mr. Chattaway and Rupert Trevlyn, you were passing near the spot, I believe. You must tell me all you saw. First of all, as I am told, you encountered Rupert." Ann Canham raised her shaking hand to her brow. Mr. Peterby had begun his questioning in a hard, matter-of-fact tone, as if he were examining a witness in court, and it did not tend to reassure her. Ann was often laughed at for her timidity. She gave him the account of her interview with Rupert as correctly as she could remember it. "He said nothing of his intention of going off anywhere?" asked Mr. Peterby, when she had finished. "Not a word, sir. He said he had nowhere to go to; if he went to the Hold, Mr. Chattaway might be for horsewhipping him again. He thought he should lie under the trees till morning." "Did you leave him there?" "I left him sitting on the stile, sir, eating the bread. He had complained of hunger, and I got him to take a part of a cake Mrs. Freeman had given me for my father." "You told Bowen, the superintendent of the police-station, that you asked him to take refuge in the lodge for the night?" "Yes, sir," after a slight pause. "Mr. Bowen put a heap of questions to me, and what with being confused, and the fright of his calling me into the place, I didn't well know what I said to him." "But you did ask Rupert Trevlyn?" "I asked him if he'd be pleased to take shelter in the lodge till the morning, as he seemed to have nowhere to go to. But he spoke out quite sharp, at my asking it, and said, did I think he wanted to get me and father into trouble with Mr. Chattaway? So I went away, leaving him there." "Well, now, just tell me whom you met afterwards." "I hadn't got above three-parts up the field, sir, when I met Mr. Chattaway. I stood off the narrow path to let him pass, and wished him good night, but he didn't answer me: he went on. Just as I came close to the road-stile, I see Jim Sanders coming over it, so I asked him where he had been, and how he had got back again, having heard he'd not been found all day, and he answered rather impertinently that he'd been up in the moon. The moon was uncommon bright that night, sir," she simply added. "Was that all Jim Sanders said?"