re gravel and mud had
half-buried them.

But there was a good deal of water still in the river, and a threatening
of another rise.

At Mr Draycott's Mark Frayne still lay insensible, but he seemed to
sleep calmly enough, and was beginning to take the food given to him,
while the doctors both agreed that there was no fear of a relapse; the
only trouble was--What would the young man's mental state be when he
recovered from his long stupor?

Day after day glided by. Mr and Mrs Frayne reached the house, Mark's
father evidently painfully ill of the complaint which had taken him from
his bleak Devonshire vicarage to the warmer climate and change of the
South of France and the Riviera.

The news had been a very great shock, and the doctor looked at him
anxiously as he went to his son's room, so weak that he had to be
assisted by Jerry and the weeping mother.

They accepted Mr Draycott's hospitality and stayed, eager to be near
their son, while longing to hear tidings of the discovery of their
nephew--tidings that did not come.

Jerry stole away more than once to try and make out the exact place
where he had seen Richard plunge in, and returned, shaking his head, for
it was impossible.

Day by day he grew more morose, for fragments of the chatter reached
him--petty talk, which blackened the young baronet's fame; while, worst
stab of all, he read in the little local paper, where, in a long article
concerning the trouble of "our respected townsman, Mr Draycott," it was
said that the principal in the terrible tragedy had been guilty of that
rash act to avoid the punishment likely to befall him consequent upon
the assault he had committed and his connection with a monetary scandal.

"And if I go and punch the head of him as wrote that, they'll have me up
before the magistrates," said Jerry; "and they call this a free land!"

Three weeks had passed, and Mark Frayne was beginning to show signs of
returning consciousness, when, towards evening, the police inspector
came to the house to ask to see Mr Draycott.

"He's in, I s'pose, Mr Brigley?" said the official, looking very
serious and important.

"Oh, yes; he's in," said Jerry, excitedly; "but--tell me--have you found
him?"

"Just got a wire, Mr Brigley, from Chedleigh, fifty mile away, sir!"

Jerry caught at one of the hall chairs, and made it scroop on the stone
floor.

The news was correct enough, and the next day an inquest was held upon
the cruelly disfigured