“Oh, there is that poor Mr. Tritton with one of his bad colds again,” Lady Stanton said, who was disturbed by the sound; and, though she was a good woman, the pity in her face was not unmixed by other sentiments. “We shall have nothing but sneezing for the next month,” she said to herself in an undertone. And doubtless still less favourable judgments were pronounced down-stairs. A glass was found on the table of the library in which Mr. Tritton, good man, had taken some camphor by way of staving off his cold while he sat and watched. Harris the butler, perversely and unkindly (for who could mistake the smell of camphor?) declared that “old Tritton had been making a night of it. He don’t surprise me with his bad colds,” said that functionary; “look at the colour of his nose!” And indeed it could not be denied that this was red, as the nose of a man subject to fits of sneezing is apt to be. When Geoff woke in the broad sunshine, and found that it was nearly noon, his first feeling of consternation was soon lost in the strange realization of all that had happened since his last waking, which suddenly came upon his mind like something new, and more real than before. The perspective even of a few hours’ sleep makes any new fact or discovery more distinct. So many emotions had followed each other through his mind, that such an interval was necessary to make him feel the real importance of all that he had heard and seen. ’Lizabeth Bampfylde had said what there was to say in few words, but the facts alone were sufficient to make the strange story clear. The chief difficulty was that Geoff had never heard of the elder son, whom the vagrant called his gentleman brother, and to whom the family and more than the family seemed to have been sacrificed. He did not remember any mention of the Bampfyldes except of the mother and daughter who had helped John Musgrave to escape, and one of whom had disappeared with him, and the mystery which surrounded this other individual, who seemed really the chief actor in the tragedy, had yet to be made out. His mind was full of this as he dressed hastily, with sundry interruptions. The household had not quite made out the events of the past night, but that there had been something “out of the common” was evident to the meanest capacity. The library window had been open all night, which was the fault of Mr. Tritton, who had undertaken to close it, begging Harris to go to bed, and not to mind. Mr. Tritton himself had been seen by an early scullion in his white tie, very much ruffled, at six o’clock; and the volleys of sneezing which had disturbed the house at seven had been distinctly heard moving about like musketry on a march, now at one point, now another, of the corridor and stairs. To crown all these strange commotions was the fact that the young master of the house, instead of obeying Harris’s call at half-past seven, did not budge (and then with reluctance) till eleven o’clock. If all these occurrences