r, which yet the quarrel of the
wind and the trees could not drown, of deep places farther down, where
the people were never found, people who--But there were shallows, too,
he remembered, shallow places among the stones where the trout were. If
anybody were drowned, Dare thought, gazing down at the pale shifting
moon in the water, he would be found there, perhaps, or at any rate, his
hat--he took his hat off, and held it tightly clinched in both his
hands--his hat would tell the tale.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Charles left Slumberleigh Hall a few hours later than Dare had done, but
only to go back to Atherstone. He could not leave the neighborhood. This
burning fever of suspense would be unbearable at any other place, and in
any case he must return by Saturday, the day on which he had promised to
meet Raymond. His hand was really slightly injured, and he made the most
of it. He kept it bound up, telegraphed to put off his next shooting
engagement on the strength of it, and returned to Atherstone, even
though he was aware that Lady Mary had arrived there the day before, on
her way home to her house in London.

Ralph and Evelyn were accustomed to sudden and erratic movements on the
part of Charles, and to Molly he was a sort of archangel, who might
arrive out of space at any moment, untrammelled by such details as
distance, trains, time, or tide. But to Lady Mary his arrival was a
significant fact, and his impatient refusal to have his hand
investigated was another. Her cold gray eyes watched him narrowly, and,
conscious that they did so, he kept out of her way as much as possible,
and devoted himself to Molly more than ever.

He was sailing a mixed fleet of tin ducks and fishes across the tank by
the tool shed, under her supervision, on the afternoon of the day he had
arrived, when Ralph came to find him in great excitement. His keeper had
just received private notice from the Thursbys' keeper that a raid on
the part of a large gang of poachers was expected that night in the
parts of the Slumberleigh coverts that had not yet been shot over, and
which adjoined Ralph's own land.

"Whereabout will that be?" said Charles, inattentively, drawing his
magnet slowly in front of the fleet.

"Where?" said Ralph, excitedly, "why, round by the old house, round by
Arleigh, of course. Thursby and I have turned down hundreds of pheasants
there. Don't you remember the hot corner by the coppice last year, below
the house, where we