not."

"On your soul's salvation, do you not know it?" he said solemnly.

"On my soul's salvation, Sir, I know it not."

The priest strode up and down the hall more than once. Then he came and
faced Margery, who was now standing beside the wide fireplace in the
hall.

"Have you any guess whither your master may be gone, or the
gentlewomen?"

"I've guessed a many things since yester-even, Sir," answered Margery
quietly, "but which is right and which is wrong I can't tell."

"When Mistress Collenwood and Mistress Pandora went hence secretly in
the night-time, knew you thereof, beforehand?"

"Surely no, Father."

"Had you any ado with their departing?"

"The first thing I knew or guessed thereof, Father, was the next morrow,
when I came into the hall and saw them not."

Mr Bastian felt baffled on every side. That his prey had eluded him
just in time to escape the trap he meant to lay for them, was manifest.
What his next step was to be, was not equally clear.

"Well!" he said at last with a disappointed air, "if you know nought,
'tis plain you can tell nought. I must essay to find some that can."

"I have told you all I know, Father," was the calm answer. But Margery
did not say that she had told all she thought, nor that if she had known
more she would have revealed it.

Mr Bastian took up his hat and stick, pausing for a moment at the door
to ask, "Is that black beast come back?"

"Jack is not returned, Sir," answered the housekeeper.

It was with a mingled sense of relief and uneasiness on that point that
the priest took the road through the village. That Jack was out of the
way was a delicious relief. But suppose Jack should spring suddenly on
him out of some hedge, or on turning a corner? Out of the way might
turn out to be all the more surely in it.

Undisturbed, however, by any vision of a black face and a feathery tail,
Mr Bastian reached Roger Hall's door. Nell opened it, and unwillingly
admitted that her master was at home, Mr Bastian being so early that
Roger had not yet left his house for the works. Roger received him in
his little parlour, to which Christie had not yet been carried.

"Hall, are you aware of your master's flight?"

Roger Hall opened his eyes in genuine amazement.

"No, Sir! Is he gone, then?"

"He never returned home after leaving the works yesterday."

Roger's face expressed nothing but honest concern for his master's
welfare. "He left the works scarce pas