tinued to believe him dead, as she does! Brett, there's
many a good man would be disposed to fling these proofs away for the
girl's sake and her mother's, seeing how little there can be to hurt
Bowmore. But justice must be done, though the blow fall--as it commonly
does--on innocent and guilty together. See, now, I've another idea. Stay
on guard while I try."

He hurried out toward the farther side of the broad band of trampled
ground which surrounded the burnt barn, and began questing to and fro,
this way and that, receding farther from me as he went, and nearing the
horse-pond and the road. At last he vanished altogether, and left me
alone with the burnt barn, my thoughts, and--that dim Shape on the barn
floor. It was broad day, but I felt none too happy; and I should not
have been at all anxious to keep the police watch at night.

Perhaps Hewitt had been gone a quarter of an hour, perhaps a little
more, when I saw him again, hurrying back and beckoning to me. I went to
meet him.

"It's right enough," he cried. "I've come on his trail again! There it
is, thorn-mark and all, by the roadside, and at a stile--going to
Redfield--probably to the station. Come, we'll follow it up! Where's
that fool of a policeman? Oh, the muddle they _can_ make when they
really try!"

"Need we wait for him?" I asked.

"Yes, better now, with those proofs lying there; and we must tell him
not to be bounced off again as I bounced him off. There he comes!"

The heavy figure of the local policeman was visible in the distance, and
we shouted and beckoned to hurry him. Agility was no part of that
policeman's nature, however, and beyond a sudden agitation of his head
and his shoulders, which we guessed to be caused by a dignified spasm of
leisurely haste, we saw no apparent acceleration of his pace.

As we stood and waited we were aware of a sound of wheels from the
direction of Redfield, and as the policeman neared us from the right,
so the sound of wheels approached us from the left. Presently a fly hove
in sight--the sort of dusty vehicle that plies at every rural railway
station in this country; and as he caught sight of us in the road the
driver began waving his whip in a very singular and excited manner. As
he drew nearer still he shouted, though at first we could not
distinguish his words. By this time the policeman, trotting ponderously,
was within a few yards. The passenger in the fly, a thin, dark, elderly
man, leaned over the sid