Though Daniel had expressly asked Minnie to tell his friend Titus Sim that he was not at the bottom of Wall Shaft Gully but far away in present safety, the wanderer’s wife did no such thing. She would not trust herself to associate Sim with her husband’s tragic misfortune; for she could not yet feel certainty that the footman was all he pretended and declared. His conduct after Sweetland’s disappearance proved exemplary. He fulfilled the mission left behind by Daniel with all possible tact and judgment. Alone he visited Minnie, and broke the news to her that she was a widow. But she surprised him more than he dismayed her.

“I pray that you an’ everybody be mistaken, Mr Sim,” she said. “I hope my Daniel’s not at the bottom of that awful place. But whether his days are over an’ he lies there, or whether he’s safe an’ beyond the reach of those who want to take him, my part is the same. I’ll never rest till I’ve done all a faithful wife can do to clear his memory of this wicked thing. You know so well as I do that he was an innocent man.”

“Yes, and trust me to prove him so, if wit and hard work can do it.”

“Those who loved him must labour to clear him. Let them who want my good word an’ good-will right Daniel. ’Tis the only way to my heart, an’ I don’t care who knows it.”

Perhaps those words were the cleverest that Minnie had ever uttered. At any rate, they produced a profound effect on Titus Sim. He pondered deeply before replying; then he nodded thoughtfully to himself more than once.

“’Tis the great task before us all; to make his memory sweet. Rest sure enough that I’ll do my share,” he promised.

But Minnie Sweetland found her dislike of Sim not lessened by his correct attitude during these dark and troubled days. She avoided him when possible. She kept the secret of her husband’s flight very close. Indeed, two living souls alone knew it beside Minnie, and they were her husband’s parents. Dan need have been in small concern for his mother, because on the morning after the poacher’s flight Minnie had private speech with the Sweetlands, and made them understand the truth. The woman was wise, and perceiving that her son’s salvation probably hung upon this secret, she kept it. Matthew Sweetland also preserved silence. His melancholy was profound, and only Minnie had any power to lift him out of it. Her energy and determination deeply impressed him; her absolute belief and trust in her husband’s honour put life into him. He told her all that he knew concerning the death of Adam Thorpe, and promised to take her to the scene of the outrage that she might study it for herself.

“If only we can prove that he had no hand in it,” said Matthew. “But there, ’tis vain to hope so—look which way you will. If he was innocent, why for did he run?”

“Innocent men have done so for nought but terror,” she answered.

“Maybe; but not Daniel. He was never afeared. No—no; he’s gone with blood on his hands. ’Twill never be known till Judgment Day. Then the record will be cried from the Book.”

“Why for shouldn’t us believe him?” she asked. “He never told me a lie in his life. Can you call home that you ever catched him in one?”

But the father refused to argue.

“He may have throwed himself down Wall Shaft Gully for all he told you he would not. And no man would have taken on that dreadful death if he wasn’t in fear of a dreadfuller. However, you can come to the place an’ welcome. I’ll show you where one rogue got me down an’ nearly hammered the life out of me; an’ I’ll show you where the other man let moonlight into poor Thorpe. The detectives have tramped every yard of the ground, but they found nothing good or bad. The man or woman as can prove my son innocent will have my blessing, I promise you, though too well I know he’s guilty. I’ve heard him threaten Thorpe myself.”

In process of time, therefore, Minnie visited the coverts of Middlecott Court and traversed the exact ground where Daniel was supposed to have destroyed Adam Thorpe. Many other more highly trained observers had done the like; but public interest in the affair perished with Sweetland’s supposed suicide; and even the police when the events of Furnum Regis and Wall Shaft Gully came to their ears, pursued their operations at Middlecott Lower Hundred and elsewhere with less ardour. Their labours threw no light upon the past; nor could they find Daniel’s accomplice. Mr Sweetland swore to a second poacher; for one man fought with him and broke his finger, while the other fired on Thorpe; but both rascals had worn masks, and no trace of either appeared after the affray, excepting only the gun—Henry Vivian’s gift to Daniel.

Proceedings presently terminated tamely enough, and it was not until a fortnight after the last detective had left Middlecott that Minnie with her father-in-law visited the theatre of Thorpe’s death.

But they took a detour, for Sweetland had fresh troubles upon his hands.

“We’ll go by Flint Stone Quarry in the east woods,” he said, “for there it was that more birds were killed last night. You’d think the anointed ruffians had done enough; but they be at it still. ’Twas a great roosting-place—very thick and warm, with snug shelter from north and east. They might have killed scores o’ dozens for all me an’ the new keeper could do. For all I know, they did. Of course when us got there all was silent as the grave; but Thomas went again first thing this morning and found one dead bird an’ one lamed but living, stuck in a tree fork. An’ there was feathers everywhere an’ marks of feet. Ten pounds worth of birds at least they took.”

The girl listened quietly.

“Maybe ’tis the old hands, father?”

“Or new ones, as have larned their wicked tricks from my dead son.”

“I shall never love you while you say these things against Daniel.”

The keeper did not answer. He was surveying the glaring evidence of another poaching raid. A stone quarry stood in the centre of heavy woods here, and gleamed white with flint and yellow with gravel where it had been gouged out of the hillside. All round it there crowded trees, and an undergrowth of juniper and rhododendron grew to the forehead of the cleft.

“Look!” said Matthew Sweetland. “The scamps comed down there; an’ one slipped, I reckon. See how the soil be tored away. I lay he fell pretty heavy. ’Twas this here more[1] catched his foot an’ over he comed. Here’s feathers an’ blood where he fell.”

Minnie stood by her father-in-law and examined the marks he indicated. It was clear that some heavy body had crashed over the edge of the quarry and fallen six feet into a bed of fern beneath. While the man examined the ground, Minnie picked up a feather or two, regarded the clotted blood beneath, and wondered whether it came from a dead pheasant or a living poacher. She peeped about among the fern, then started, bent down, picked up a small object and put it into her pocket quickly. When the keeper returned she was looking listlessly at the wound on the quarry.

“The man must have fallen heavy, if ’twas a man,” she said.

“The Dowl looks arter his own,” answered Mr Sweetland. “’Twould have broke the neck of any honest chap, no doubt.”

They proceeded a mile into the sweet recesses of the woods. Then Minnie stood on the scene of the murder and regarded, not without emotion, the spot where her husband was declared to have killed Adam Thorpe.

His father gloomily pointed out the place where Daniel’s gun had been discovered by Titus Sim.

“It have aged the poor wretch twenty year,” he said. “Sim be a hang-dog creature now, an’ slinks past me as though he was to blame for Dan’s downfall. But I won’t have that. He only done his duty. There was the gun, an’ he had to show it. ’Tis all summed up in that. How did it come to be there, if my son was not? An’ why for did he run away or else kill himself, if he had the power to prove himself guiltless? Who can answer those questions?”

“’Tis for me to do it,” replied Minnie. “An’ right’s my side, father. If he was dead, ’tis for me to live to right his memory; but he be living, ’tis for me to clear him more than ever, so that he may come back an’ stand afore your face again like an honest man.”

“Never—never,” he answered. “That’s where us picked up Thorpe; an’ that’s where the gun was; an’ there, alongside that fallen tree in the brambles, was the spot where t’other blackguard got me down an’ nearly beat the life out of me.”

The girl looked round about her and nodded.

“Now you go about your business, for I lay this not a pleasant place to you,” she said. “I’ll just peep around, if you please.”

“There’s no eyes of all them that have searched here was so bright as yours, my dear; but think twice afore you waste your time here. ’Tis not likely you’ll find aught; an’ if you find anything more than others have found, ’tis most certain to be sorrow.”

“I don’t think it. My heart tells me as there be that hid here as will pay for finding. I’ve felt it all along, an’ never more than to-day.”

“Seek then, an’ if you can find my son’s innocence, me an’ his mother will bless you for evermore, when us wakes and when us lies down. You’ve my leave to come here as often as you will, an’ I’ll tell Thomas an’ t’others that you’m free of the woods. Your way home along is by the path yonder. ’Twill fetch ’e out ’pon the side of Hameldon; then to the high road ban’t above a mile.”

The old man left her, and Minnie, sitting down upon the fallen tree which he had pointed out, made a quiet and systematic plan of search. But her thoughts were divided between this present site and that whereon she had stood half-an-hour earlier. Now she mapped out the region of the fray, and began her work where Daniel’s gun had been discovered by Titus Sim. She took a reel of stout white thread from her pocket and with sticks marked out a space of three square yards. Then yard by yard she went over the ground, lifting every leaf and examining every inch of grass and soil. Not an atom of ground escaped this most laborious scrutiny. With immense patience and care she pursued the task, and at the end of three hours, in the silent heart of the woods, she had inspected six square yards. Nothing rewarded the examination: but only a very trifling tract out of that involved was yet inspected, and Minnie, having carefully marked the portion investigated, left Middlecott Lower Hundred and prepared to return home.

She still lived at Hangman’s Hut, and the fifty pounds with which Daniel had started life promised to keep her there until time should pass and news of her husband reach her. Already the wonder waned and folks began to talk of the “widow Sweetland” and ask each other how long she must in decency remain alone before taking another husband. That Titus Sim would be the man few doubted. He often visited her, and he strove valiantly in many directions to discover the secret of Thorpe’s death. Sometimes he grew elated at the shadow of a clue; then, again, he became cast down as the hope of explanation vanished and the problem evaded him.

Three nights after Minnie’s first great search, Mr Sim called upon her. Of late he had seen her not seldom, because the family at Middlecott was away and the servants consequently enjoyed unusual leisure.

Titus found Mrs Beer with her neighbour, for the innkeeper’s wife often spent an evening hour at the lonely girl’s cottage, and Mr Beer also would occasionally run over if business was quiet. But his motives were selfish, for Minnie proved a good listener, and though she did not praise the fat man’s poetry, she was always prepared to give it respectful hearing.

The footman knocked and entered, according to his custom; then he sat by the fire and stretched his gaitered legs to the blaze.

“A rough night,” he said. “I had a regular fight with the wind coming up over the heath; but you’m snug enough seemingly. I do welcome these days when our people are away; for they give me a chance to be in the air. Sometimes I’m sore tempted to throw up this life and get out-of-door work again.”

“You wasn’t meant for a flunkey, I’m sure,” declared Mrs Beer. “I never can think ’tis a very dignified calling for a grown man, though of course the quality must have ’em.”

“You are almost so fond of the woods and the wild things as my Daniel is,” declared Minnie.

“True for you,” he answered. “True for you, Mrs Sweetland.”

“I dare say you get a breath of the woods now an’ again while the folks are away?”

“All I can. These stirring times make me long to be a gamekeeper—just like when the country goes to war, we men all want to be soldiers. I’m afraid poor old Sweetland gets beyond his work. There’s been more trouble in the preserves since Sir Reginald went to Scotland.”

This information apparently reminded the mistress of Hangman’s Hut that she had offered Titus no hospitality.

“I’ll draw some cider for ’e. ’Tis all I’ve got. Dan promised never to drink nought else after we was married. An’ if you want for to smoke, please do it.”

The footman pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a pipe from his pocket; as he did so he groaned.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Mrs Beer. “That’s the noise my old man makes in his sleep when the rheumatics be at him.”

“My side. I had a cruel dig in the ribs two days agone. Slipped and fell on the cellar stairs with a scuttle o’ coals. I thought I’d broke every bone in my body. And a pang shoots through an’ through my side yet when I move my right arm. But ’tis better than ’twas.”

Minnie expressed active regret and brought Mr Sim a cushion for his back. His bright eyes looked round the little comfortable kitchen hungrily. He already pictured the time when he might fill a dead man’s shoes, for he was among the many who believed that Daniel Sweetland had in reality perished and would be heard of no more. Minnie never undeceived him.

Now the mistress of Hangman’s Hut poured her visitor out his drink, then sat and watched the tobacco smoke curl from his lips. Presently she spoke.

“Do you still use that wooden pipe what my Dan gived ’e? ’Twas cut very cunning in the shape of a fox’s mask wi’ li’l black beads for eyes. I should like to think as you smoke it sometimes an’ remember him as gived it to you.”

“And so I do. ’Tis my best pipe—for great occasions only. There’s nought belongs to me I treasure more. I had it betwixt my teeth only this morning.”

The woman looked at him and nodded gravely. There was nothing in her face that showed his speech particularly interested her. And yet, in wide ignorance of facts, Sim had spoken words that might some day lead to his discomfiture and ruin. For he had lied, and Mrs Sweetland knew it.

He drank, talked on and suggested in his speech and ideas a man of simple rectitude and honourable mind. His admiration for Minnie he made no attempt to conceal. It presently fired Mrs Beer into a rather personal remark.

“Lord! what a couple you’d make!” she said, eying them. “I do hope, to say it without rudeness, as you’ll see your way, my dear; for Titus here be cut out for you; an’ everybody be of the same opinion. When a man’s saved enough to open a publichouse, that man’s a right to look high for his partner, and he has a right to the respect of us females. Take the case of my Beer. He waited, so patient as Job, till the critical cash was to his name in the Bank at Moreton. Then he flinged over service as gardener up to Archerton and lifted his eyes to me; but not afore he’d got three figures to his name. An’ we all know that Mr Sim be a very snug man.”

“I won’t deny it,” said Titus. “’Twould be idle to do so. I am a snug man as young men go. The guests at Middlecott are generous, and five pound notes soon mount up. But we mustn’t talk of that. Mrs Sweetland hopes that my poor friend and her dear husband be still in the land of the living. And, though it cuts the ground from beneath me, I hope so too. Have ’e heard ’bout drunkard Parkinson? They say he’s not likely to get over his last bout. Now there’s a man famed for poaching since his childhood, and as clever at it as any chap ever I heard of. It strikes me that he knows a lot more than his fellow creatures have heard him speak. Anyway, I’m going to see him to-morrow, if he’s well enough to see me. He’s not above a bit of sport by night still, though I guess he’s shot his last bird now, poor chap! Put a gun in that man’s hand, and he is sober in a minute. ’Tis an instinct with him.”

Minnie listened and said nothing. She appeared to be working on a piece of red flannel, but in reality her mind and attention were elsewhere. She had private reasons for a close personal scrutiny of Titus, and now, from under veiled lids, observed his every action, his dress, his speech.

The man clearly endured physical pain from time to time. He moved his right shoulder gingerly and occasionally, forgetting it, puckered his mouth into the expressions of suffering, when a twinge reminded him of his accident. He was clad in an old shooting jacket and breeches, the gift of one of his master’s guests at the end of a shooting season. One leg was torn and the rent had been carefully drawn together. His gaiters were fastened with yellow horn buttons; but upon the right leg a button was missing. It had, however, been replaced with a black one.

Sim smoked and finished his cider; then he loaded his pipe again, talked ten minutes longer and prepared to depart.

“I was forgetting,” he said. “Mrs Sweetland, at the lodge, sent a special message by me. She wants for you to come down and take supper along with her to-morrow. And she was so kind as to ask me also. And I said as I would do it and be proud to see you home after, if agreeable to you.”

“I’ll come gladly. I shall be at Moreton to-morrow. My fowls have beginned to lay finely, an’ I hope to have a dozen eggs for market.”

“And may I see you home after?”

“If you’ve a mind to, though there’s no need—a married woman like me.”

“You’m so brave. Good-night—good-night. See how the moon is shining on the fog-banks. There’ll come rain before morning, for the wind’s fallen a lot already.”

He departed, and soon afterwards Mrs Beer also returned to her home. Then Minnie tidied up the kitchen, brought in from his kennel her sole companion—a great yellow mongrel dog, loved of Daniel—and then locked the door.

Next she turned out from a drawer in the kitchen table a piece of brown wood and examined it very closely. It was the bowl of a pipe broken roughly from the stem. The fragment had been carved to represent a fox’s mask, and upon the bottom of it were cut in small letters “T.S. from D.S.” Minnie Sweetland collected some of the shreds of Mr Sim’s tobacco and compared it with that still pressed into the broken pipe. Thus, while the footman walked home well satisfied with the progress of events, and full of dreams for his future prosperity, she upon whom it rested had made a remarkable discovery. That Titus Sim was involved in the murder of Thorpe, Minnie could not guess or prove; but that he was implicated in the recent raid—that it was, in fact, Sim who had fallen in the quarry—it seemed impossible to doubt.

The young woman’s first thought was to tell her father-in-law upon the following day. But she abandoned the idea. “I’ll go on alone,” she said to herself. “My Dan shall have none to thank but me. I’ll prove afore all the world that he told the truth; an’ maybe I’ll live to bring the truth to light. An’ if there’s danger in it, let the danger fall on me. I never was afeared of a human an’ never will be, please God.”