6. Was that the real reason of the agitation in which
he, Bryce, had found Ransford a few moments after
the discovery of the body?

There was plenty of time before him for the due solution of these
mysteries, reflected Bryce--and for solving another problem which might
possibly have some relationship to them--that of the exact connection
between Ransford and his two wards. Bryce, in telling Ransford that
morning of what was being said amongst the tea-table circles of the old
cathedral city, had purposely only told him half a tale. He knew,
and had known for months, that the society of the Close was greatly
exercised over the position of the Ransford menage. Ransford, a
bachelor, a well-preserved, active, alert man who was certainly of no
more than middle age and did not look his years, had come to Wrychester
only a few years previously, and had never shown any signs of forsaking
his single state. No one had ever heard him mention his family or
relations; then, suddenly, without warning, he had brought into his
house Mary Bewery, a handsome young woman of nineteen, who was said
to have only just left school, and her brother Richard, then a boy of
sixteen, who had certainly been at a public school of repute and was
entered at the famous Dean's School of Wrychester as soon as he came
to his new home. Dr. Ransford spoke of these two as his wards, without
further explanation; the society of the Close was beginning to want
much more explanation. Who were they--these two young people? Was Dr.
Ransford their uncle, their cousin--what was he to them? In any case,
in the opinion of the elderly ladies who set the tone of society in
Wrychester, Miss Bewery was much too young, and far too pretty, to be
left without a chaperon. But, up to then, no one had dared to say as
much to Dr. Ransford--instead, everybody said it freely behind his back.

Bryce had used eyes and ears in relation to the two young people. He had
been with Ransford a year when they arrived; admitted freely to their
company, he had soon discovered that whatever relationship existed
between them and Ransford, they had none with anybody else--that
they knew of. No letters came for them from uncles, aunts, cousins,
grandfathers, grandmothers. They appeared to have no memories or
reminiscences of relatives, nor of father or mother; there was a curious
atmosphere of isolation about them. They had plenty of talk about what
might be called their present--the