was just then
hanging in the balance.

As soon as Rosa had been fetched away by her friends at the manor-house
her brothers started on their expedition, without waiting for dinner or
tea. Cornelius, to whom the millwright always addressed his letters when
he wrote any, drew from his pocket and re-read as he walked the curt note
which had led to this journey being undertaken; it was despatched by
their father the night before, immediately upon his liberation, and
stated that he was setting out for Narrobourne at the moment of writing;
that having no money he would be obliged to walk all the way; that he
calculated on passing through the intervening town of Ivell about six on
the following day, where he should sup at the Castle Inn, and where he
hoped they would meet him with a carriage-and-pair, or some other such
conveyance, that he might not disgrace them by arriving like a tramp.

'That sounds as if he gave a thought to our position,' said Cornelius.

Joshua knew the satire that lurked in the paternal words, and said
nothing. Silence prevailed during the greater part of their journey. The
lamps were lighted in Ivell when they entered the streets, and Cornelius,
who was quite unknown in this neighbourhood, and who, moreover, was not
in clerical attire, decided that he should be the one to call at the
Castle Inn. Here, in answer to his inquiry under the darkness of the
archway, they told him that such a man as he had described left the house
about a quarter of an hour earlier, after making a meal in the kitchen-
settle. He was rather the worse for liquor.

'Then,' said Joshua, when Cornelius joined him outside with this
intelligence, 'we must have met and passed him! And now that I think of
it, we did meet some one who was unsteady in his gait, under the trees on
the other side of Hendford Hill, where it was too dark to see him.'

They rapidly retraced their steps; but for a long stretch of the way home
could discern nobody. When, however, they had gone about three-quarters
of the distance, they became conscious of an irregular footfall in front
of them, and could see a whitish figure in the gloom. They followed
dubiously. The figure met another wayfarer--the single one that had been
encountered upon this lonely road--and they distinctly heard him ask the
way to Narrobourne. The stranger replied--what was quite true--that the
nearest way was by turning in at the stile by the next bridge, and
following the