Strange rumours were abroad in the neighbourhood of Trevlyn Hold, and the excitement increased hourly. Mr. Chattaway had murdered Rupert Trevlyn—so ran the gossip—and Jim Sanders was in custody. Before the night of the day on which you saw Jim in the police-station, these reports, with many wild and almost impossible additions, were current, and spreading largely.

With the exception of the accusation made by Jim Sanders, the only corroboration to the tale appeared to rest in the fact that Rupert Trevlyn was not to be found. Dumps and his brother-constable scoured the locality high and low, and could find no traces of him. Sober lookers-on (but it is rare to find them in times of great excitement) regarded this as a favourable fact. Had Rupert really been murdered, or even accidentally killed by a chance blow from Mr. Chattaway, surely his body would be forthcoming to confirm the tale. But there were not wanting others who believed, and did not shrink from the avowal, that Mr. Chattaway was quite capable of suppressing all signs of the affray, including the dead body itself; though by what sleight-of-hand the act could have been accomplished seemed likely to remain a mystery.

Before Mr. Chattaway got home from Blackstone in the evening, all the rumours, good and bad, were known at Trevlyn Hold.

Mr. Chattaway was not unprepared to find this the case. In returning, he had turned his horse to the police-station, and reined in. Bowen, who saw him, came out.

"Has he been taken?" demanded Mr. Chattaway.

He put the question in an earnest tone, some impatience dashed with it, that was apparently genuine. "No, he has not," replied Bowen, stroking his chin, taking note of Mr. Chattaway's face. "Dumps and Chigwell have been at it all day; are at it still; but as yet without result."

"Then they are laggards at their work!" retorted Mr. Chattaway, his countenance darkening. "He was wandering about the place last night, and is sure to be not far off it to-day. By Heaven, he shall be unearthed! If there's any screening going on, as I know there was yesterday with regard to Jim Sanders, I'll have the actors brought to justice!"

Bowen came out of a reverie. "Would you be so good as to step inside for a few minutes, Mr. Chattaway? I have a word to say to you."

Mr. Chattaway got off his horse, hooked the bridle to the rails, as he had hooked it in the morning, and followed Bowen. The man saw that the doors were closed, and then spoke.

"There's a tale flying about, Mr. Chattaway, that Rupert Trevlyn has come to some harm. Do you know anything of it?"

"Not I," slightingly answered Mr. Chattaway. "What harm should come to him?"

"It is said that you and he met last night, had some sort of encounter by moonlight, and that Rupert was—in short, that some violence was done him."

For a full minute they remained looking at each other. The policeman appeared intent on biting the feathers of his pen; in reality, he was studying the face of Mr. Chattaway with a critical acumen his apparently careless demeanour imparted little idea of. He saw the blood mount under the dark skin; he saw the eye lighten with emotion: but the emotion was more like that called forth by anger than guilt. At least, so the police officer judged; and habit had rendered him a pretty correct observer. Mr. Chattaway was the first to speak.

"How do you know anything of the sort took place?—any interview?"

"It was watched—that is, accidentally seen. A person was passing at the time, and has mentioned it to-day."

"Who was the person?"

Bowen did not reply to the question. The omission may have been accidental, since he was hastening to put one on his own account.

"Do you deny this, Mr. Chattaway?"

"No. I wish I had the opportunity of acknowledging it to Mr. Rupert Trevlyn in the manner he deserves," continued Mr. Chattaway, in what looked like a blaze of anger.

"It is said that after the—the encounter, Rupert Trevlyn was left as one dead," cautiously resumed Bowen.

"Psha!" was the scornful retort. "Dead! He got up and ran away."

A very different account from that of Jim Sanders. Bowen was silent for a minute, endeavouring, most likely, to reconcile the two. "Have you any objection to state what took place, sir?"

"I don't know that I have," was the reply, somewhat sullenly delivered. "But I can't see what business it is of yours."

"People are taking up odd notions about it," said Bowen.

"People be hanged! It's no concern of theirs."

"But if they come to me and oblige me to make it my concern?" returned the officer, in significant tones. "If it's all fair and above-board, you had better tell me, Mr. Chattaway. If it's not, perhaps the less you say the better."

It was a hint not calculated to conciliate a chafed spirit, and Mr. Chattaway resented it. "How dare you presume to throw out insinuations to me?" he cried, snatching his riding-whip off the desk, where he had laid it, and stalking towards the door. "I'll tell you nothing; and you may make the best and the worst of it. Find Rupert Trevlyn, if you must know, and get it out of him. I ask you who has been spreading the rumour that I met Rupert Trevlyn last night?"

Bowen saw no reason why he should not disclose it. "Jim Sanders," he replied.

"Psha!" contemptuously ejaculated Mr. Chattaway: and he mounted his horse and rode away.

So that after this colloquy, Chattaway was in a degree prepared to find unpleasant rumours had reached the Hold. When he entered he could not avoid seeing the shrinking, timid looks cast on him by his children; the haughty, questioning face of Miss Diana; the horror in that of Mrs. Chattaway. He took the same sullen, defiant tone with them that he had taken with Bowen, denying the thing by implication more than by direct assertions. He asked them all whether they had gone out of their minds, that they should listen to senseless tales; and threatened the most dire revenge against Rupert when he was found.

Thus matters went on for a few days. But the rumours did not die away: on the contrary, they gathered strength and plausibility. Things were in a most uncomfortable state at the Hold: the family were tortured by dread and doubt they dared not give utterance to, and strove to hide; the very servants went about with silent footsteps, casting covert glances at their master from dark corners, and avoiding a direct meeting with him. Mr. Chattaway could not help seeing all this, and it did not tend to give him equanimity.

The only thing that could clear up this miserable doubt was to find Rupert. But Rupert was not found. Friends and foes, police and public, put out their best endeavours to accomplish it; but no more trace could be discovered of Rupert than if he had never existed—or than if, as many openly said, he were buried in some quiet corner of Mr. Chattaway's grounds. To do Mr. Chattaway justice, he appeared the most anxious of any for Rupert's discovery: not with a view to clearing himself from suspicion; that he trampled under foot, as it were; but that Rupert might be brought to justice for burning the ricks.

Perhaps Mr. Chattaway's enemies may be pardoned for their doubts. It cannot be denied that there were apparent grounds for them: many a man has been officially accused of murder upon less. There was the well-known ill-feeling which had long existed on Mr. Chattaway's part towards Rupert; there was the dread of being displaced by him, which had latterly arisen through the visit of Mr. Daw; there was the sore feeling excited on both sides by the business of the rick-yard and the subsequent examination; there was the night contest spoken of by Jim Sanders, which Mr. Chattaway did not deny; there were the scratches and bruises visible on that gentleman's face; and there was the total disappearance of Rupert. People could remember the blank look which had passed over Mr. Chattaway's countenance when Rupert ran into the circle gathered round the pit at Blackstone. "He'd ha' bin glad that he were dead," they had murmured then, one to another. "And happen he have put him out o' the way," they murmured now.

Perhaps they did not all go so far as to suspect Mr. Chattaway of the crime of premeditated murder: he might have killed him wilfully in the passion of the moment; or killed him accidentally by an unlucky blow that had done its work more effectually than he had intended. The fruitless search was no barrier to these doubts; murdered men had been hidden away before, and would be again.

I have not yet mentioned the last point of suspicion, but it was one much dwelt upon—the late return of Mr. Chattaway to his home on the night in question. The servants had not failed to talk of this, and the enemies outside took it up and discussed it eagerly. It was most unusual for Mr. Chattaway to be away from home at night. Unsociable by nature, and a man whose company was not sought by his neighbours—for they disliked him—it was a rare thing for Mr. Chattaway to spend his evenings out. He attended evening parties now and then in the company of his wife and Miss Trevlyn, but not once a year was he invited out alone. His absence therefore on this night, coupled with his late entrance, close upon midnight, was the more remarkable. Where had he been until that hour? Everyone wondered: everyone asked it. Mr. Chattaway carelessly answered his wife and Miss Diana that he had been on business at Barbrook, but condescended to give no reply whatever to any other living mortal amongst the questioners.

As the days went on without news of Rupert, Mr. Chattaway expressed a conviction that he had made his way to Mr. Daw, and was being sheltered there. A most unsatisfactory conviction, if he really and genuinely believed it. With those two hatching plots against him, he could never know a moment's peace. He was most explosive against Rupert; at home and abroad he never ceased to utter threats of prosecution for the crime of which he had been guilty. He rode every other day to the station, worrying Bowen, asking whether any traces had turned up: urged—this was in the first day or so of the disappearance—that houses and cottages should be searched. Bowen quite laughed at the suggestion. If Mr. Chattaway had reason to suspect any particular house or cottage, they might perhaps go the length of getting a search warrant; but to enter dwellings indiscriminately would be an intolerable and unjustifiable procedure.

Mr. Chattaway was unable to say that he had especial cause to suspect any house or cottage: unless, he added in his temper, it might be Trevlyn Farm. Jim Sanders had, it appeared, hidden there in an outbuilding: why not Rupert Trevlyn? But Bowen saw and knew that Mr. Chattaway had only spoken in exasperation. Trevlyn Farm was not more likely to conceal Rupert Trevlyn than any other house of its standing—in fact less; for Mrs. Ryle would not have permitted it. Her dislike to any sort of underhand dealing was so great, that she would not have concealed Rupert, or countenanced his being concealed, had it been to save him from hanging. In that she resembled Miss Diana Trevlyn. Miss Diana would have spent her last shilling nobly to defend Rupert on his trial—had it come to a trial—but ignominiously conceal him from the reach of the law, that she would never have done. Chattaway's remark travelled to George Ryle: George happened to meet Bowen the same day, not an hour after, and spoke of it. He told Bowen that the bare idea of Rupert's being concealed on their premises was absurd, and added, on his word of honour, not only that he did not know where Rupert was, but where he was likely to be: the thing was to him a complete mystery. Bowen nodded. In Bowen's opinion the idea of his being concealed in any house was all moonshine.

The days went on and on, and it did appear very mysterious where Rupert could be, or what his fate. His clothes, his effects, remained unclaimed at Trevlyn Hold. When Mrs. Chattaway came unexpectedly upon anything that had belonged to him, she turned sick with the fears that darted across her heart. A faint hope arose within her at times that Rupert had gone, as Mr. Chattaway loudly, and perhaps others more secretly, surmised, to Mr. Daw in his far-off home, but it was rejected the next moment. She knew, none better, that Rupert had no means to take him there. Oh, how often did she wish, in her heart of hearts, that they had never usurped Trevlyn Hold! It seemed they were beginning to reap all the bitter fruits, which had been so long ripening.

But this supposition was soon to be set aside. Two letters arrived from Mr. Daw: one to Mr. Freeman, the other to Rupert himself; and they completely did away with the idea that Rupert Trevlyn had found his way to the Pyrenees.

It appeared that Rupert had written an account to Mr. Daw of these unhappy circumstances; his setting the rick on fire in his passion, and his arrest. He had written it on the evening of the day he was discharged from custody. And by the contents of his letter, it was evident that he then contemplated returning to the Hold.

"These letters from Mr. Daw settle the question: Rupert has not gone there," observed Mr. Freeman. "But they only make the mystery greater."

Yes, they did. And the news went forth to the neighbourhood that Rupert Trevlyn had written a letter subsequent to the examination at Barmester, wherein he stated that he was going straight home to the Hold. Gossip never loses in the carrying, you know.

Jim Sanders, who was discharged and at work again, became quite the lion of the day. He had never been made so much of in his life. Tea here, supper there, ale everywhere. Everyone was asking Jim the particulars of that later night, and Jim, nothing loth, gave them, with the addition of his own comments.

And the days went on, and the ferment and the doubts increased.