over one day--no explanation that the eye of
the law could recognise having been discovered thus far to account for
the mysterious circumstances of the case.

It was arranged that more witnesses should be summoned, and that the
London solicitor of the deceased should be invited to attend. A medical
man was also charged with the duty of reporting on the mental condition
of the servant, which appeared at present to debar him from giving any
evidence of the least importance. He could only declare, in a dazed
way, that he had been ordered, on the night of the fire, to wait in the
lane, and that he knew nothing else, except that the deceased was
certainly his master.

My own impression was, that he had been first used (without any guilty
knowledge on his own part) to ascertain the fact of the clerk's absence
from home on the previous day, and that he had been afterwards ordered
to wait near the church (but out of sight of the vestry) to assist his
master, in the event of my escaping the attack on the road, and of a
collision occurring between Sir Percival and myself. It is necessary
to add, that the man's own testimony was never obtained to confirm this
view. The medical report of him declared that what little mental
faculty he possessed was seriously shaken; nothing satisfactory was
extracted from him at the adjourned inquest, and for aught I know to
the contrary, he may never have recovered to this day.

I returned to the hotel at Welmingham so jaded in body and mind, so
weakened and depressed by all that I had gone through, as to be quite
unfit to endure the local gossip about the inquest, and to answer the
trivial questions that the talkers addressed to me in the coffee-room.
I withdrew from my scanty dinner to my cheap garret-chamber to secure
myself a little quiet, and to think undisturbed of Laura and Marian.

If I had been a richer man I would have gone back to London, and would
have comforted myself with a sight of the two dear faces again that
night. But I was bound to appear, if called on, at the adjourned
inquest, and doubly bound to answer my bail before the magistrate at
Knowlesbury. Our slender resources had suffered already, and the
doubtful future--more doubtful than ever now--made me dread decreasing
our means unnecessarily by allowing myself an indulgence even at the
small cost of a double railway journey in the carriages of the second
class.

The next day--the day immediately following the inque