when he goes home. No harm
can possibly come to him then."

Not once during all this had General Raynor's eyes left the man's face,
nor had the faint pallor and the curiously tense look departed from his
own. He stood looking at Sir Philip in intense and unbroken silence, his
lips tightly set, a worried look in his fixed eyes, as if he were trying
to believe this thing and found it difficult to do so. Now, however, he
turned to the assembled servants, ordered them back to the house, made
one or two uneasy turns up and down for a distance of three or four
yards, then halted suddenly and looked into Sir Philip's face again.

"Clavering," he said in his abrupt, direct manner, going straight to the
point, as was his custom. "Clavering, are you sure that you are telling
the truth about this? Are you sure? Will you swear, will you give me
your word of honour, that it was to seek your boy, that and that alone,
which brought you to this place to-night?"

"Raynor! By the Lord Harry, sir----"

"No, don't fly into a passion. Anger is no answer, and an answer is what
I want. A man of honour responds promptly to an appeal to that honour;
and I am asking you on yours if you are telling the truth?"

"On my word of honour, then, I am!" said Sir Philip indignantly.

"And you will swear by it that you came only to meet your son? That you
had no other purpose in coming whatsoever?"

"Yes, decidedly I will swear it. Are you taking leave of your senses,
Raynor? What other reason _could_ I have?"

An expression of intense relief drove that other and darker look from
the General's face and eyes.

"I don't know," he said, fetching a deep sigh; "but I am glad to have
your word for it, glad to say that I accept it. Still, why should I not
ask? Why should I not question everything, any statement, in the face of
to-night?"

"I don't know what you are driving at, I am sure."

"Don't you? Then let me tell you: your boy is not here. He left this
afternoon; came and stayed but a little time, and left so early that
there has been time and to spare for him to get back to Clavering Close
a dozen times over. On the top of that, you tell me that a door in my
garden wall, a door that has been locked up, and screwed up, and even
rusted up, for years was found standing open. And on top of that again,
an emissary of the police, of Scotland Yard, of that man Cleek, is here
in these grounds. Who opened that door? What brings the police to
Wuthering