I was busy at the time." A sickening suspicion that the two strangers in the chaise might be the two men whom I had seen lurking under the wall, forced its way into my mind.

I said no more until we reached the house.
All was quiet.

The one sign of anything unusual was in the plain traces of the passage of wheels over the turf in front of Browndown.

The landlord was the first to see them.

"The chaise must have stopped at the house, sir," he said, addressing himself to the rector.
Reverend Finch was suffering under a second suspension of speech.