ack cloud upon his face, and the very next
day the miller's daughter died, quite sudden and mysterious."

"How very strange! But now I have got a new idea. Has the miller a
strong high dam to his pond, and a good stout sluice-gate at the end!"

"Yes, miss, to be sure he has," said Mrs. Busk; "otherwise how could he
grind at all, when the river is so low as it is sometimes?"

"Then I know what he wanted, and I will take a leaf out of his own
book--the miscreant! He wanted the miller to stop back the water and
leave the pool dry at the 'Murder-bridge.' Would it be possible for him
to do that?"

"I can not tell you, miss; but your thought is very clever. It is likely
enough that he did want that, though he never would dare to ask without
some pretense--some other cause I mean, to show for it. He may have been
thinking that whatever he was wanting was likely to be under water. And
that shows another thing, if it is so."

"Mrs. Busk, my head goes round with such a host of complications. I do
my best to think them out--and then there comes another!"

"No, miss; this only clears things up a little. If the man can not be
sure whether what he is looking for is on land or under water, it seems
to me almost to show that it was lost at the murder time in the dark
and flurry. A man would know if he dropped any thing in the water by
daylight, from the splash and the ripple, and so on, for the stream is
quite slow at that corner. He dropped it, miss, when he did the deed, or
else it came away from his lordship."

"Nothing was lost, as I said before, from the body of my grandfather,
so far at least as our knowledge goes. Whatever was lost was the
murderer's. Now please to tell me all about the miller, and how I may
get round him."

"You make me laugh in the middle of black things, miss, by the way
you have of putting them. But as to the miller--Master Withypool is a
wonder, as concerns the ladies. He is one of those men that stand up for
every thing when a man tries upper side of them. But let a woman come,
and get up under, and there he is--a pie crust lifted. Why, I, at my
age, could get round him, as you call it. But you, miss--and more than
that, you are something like his daughter; and the old man frets after
her terrible. Go you into his yard, and just smile upon him, miss, and
if the Moon River can be stopped, he'll stop it for you."

This seemed a very easy way to do it. But I told Mrs. Busk that I would
pay well also