ent out its watchers by day and night, eagerly
contributing its men and its wits to the chase.

For in this chase there was a hidden motive which found no expression
in the local papers; of which men spoke to each other under their
breaths, when they spoke at all; but which none the less became in a
very short time, by the lightning spread of a few evil reports, through
the stubble of popular resentment, the animating passion at the heart of
it. The police and Faversham's few friends were searching for the
murderer of Melrose; the public in general were soon hunting Faversham's
accomplice. The discovery of Will Brand meant, in the one case, the
arrest of a poor crazy fellow who had avenged by murder his father's
persecution and ruin; in the other case, it meant the unmasking of an
educated and smooth-spoken villain, who, finding a vast fortune in
danger, had taken ingenious means to secure it. In this black suspicion
there spoke the accumulated hatred of years, stored up originally, in the
mind of a whole countryside, against a man who had flouted every law of
good citizenship, and strained every legal right of property to breaking
point; and discharging itself now, with pent-up force, upon the tyrant's
tool, conceived as the murderous plotter for his millions. To realize the
strength of the popular feeling, as it presently revealed itself, was to
look shuddering into things elemental.

It was first made plain on the day of Melrose's funeral. In order to
avoid the concourse which might attend a burial in Whitebeck parish
church, lying near the main road, and accessible from many sides, it
was determined to bury him in the graveyard of the little mountain
chapel on the fell above the Penfolds' cottage. The hour was sunrise; and
all the preparations had been as secretly made as possible. But when the
dark December morning arrived, with sleet showers whitening all the
slopes of Helvellyn and the gashed breast of Blencathra, a dense crowd
thronged all the exits of the Tower, and lined the steep lanes leading to
the chapel. Faversham, Cyril Boden, and a Carlisle solicitor occupied the
only carriage which followed the hearse. Tatham and his mother met the
doleful procession at the chapel. Lady Tatham, very pale and queenly,
walked hand in hand with a slight girl in mourning. As the multitude
outside the churchyard caught sight of the pair, a thrill ran through its
ranks. Melrose's daughter, and rightful heiress--disinherited,