could not attempt so much as a guess at
what it might be. And this interview with Bethel brought him no nearer
the point he wished to find out--whether this Thorn was the same man. In
walking back to his office he met Mr. Tom Herbert.

"Does Captain Thorn purpose making a long stay with you?" he stopped him
to inquire.

"He's gone; I have just seen him off by the train," was the reply of Tom
Herbert. "It seemed rather slow with him without Jack, so he docked his
visit, and says he'll pay us one when Jack's to the fore."

As Mr. Carlyle went home to dinner that evening, he entered the
grove, ostensibly to make a short call on Mrs. Hare. Barbara, on the
tenterhooks of impatience, accompanied him outside when he departed, and
walked down the path.

"What have you learnt?" she eagerly asked.

"Nothing satisfactory," was the reply of Mr. Carlyle. "And the man has
left again."

"Left?" uttered Barbara.

Mr. Carlyle explained. He told her how they had come to his house the
previous evening after Barbara's departure, and his encounter with Tom
Herbert that day; he mentioned, also, his interview with Bethel.

"Can he have gone on purpose, fearing consequences?" wondered Barbara.

"Scarcely; or why should he have come?"

"You did not suffer any word to escape you last night causing him to
suspect for a moment that he was hounded?"

"Not any. You would make a bad lawyer, Barbara."

"Who or what is he?"

"An officer in her majesty's service, in John Herbert's regiment. I
ascertained no more. Tom said he was of good family. But I cannot help
suspecting it is the same man."

"Can nothing more be done?"

"Nothing in the present stage of the affair," continued Mr. Carlyle,
as he passed through the gate to continue his way. "We can only wait on
again with what patience we may, hoping that time will bring about its
own elucidation."

Barbara pressed her forehead down on the cold iron of the gate as his
footsteps died away. "Aye, to wait on," she murmured, "to wait on in
dreary pain; to wait on, perhaps, for years, perhaps forever! And poor
Richard--wearing out his days in poverty and exile!"

CHAPTER XX.

GOING FROM HOME.

"I should recommend a complete change of scene altogether, Mr. Carlyle.
Say some place on the French or Belgian coast. Sea bathing might do
wonders."

"Should you think it well for her to go so far from home?"

"I should. In these cases of protracted weakness, where you can do
nothing