you think he is fled, then ?" Sir John shrugged.

"What else is to be thought ?" Lionel hung his head.

"What else, indeed ?" said he, and took his leave like a man overwrought, as indeed he was.

He had never considered that so obvious a conclusion must follow upon his work so fully to explain the happening and to set at rest any doubt concerning it.
He returned to Penarrow, and bluntly told Nicholas what Sir John suspected and what he feared himself must be the true reason of Sir Oliver's disappearance.

The servant, however, was none so easy to convince.
"But do ee believe that he done it ?" cried Nicholas.