"Why, I thought that he was transported for fifteen years." Then Mark told the Rector the inner history of the past six months, and of the report they had had from the officer at Bow Street of the personal appearance of the wounded man.
"Other things are in favor of it," he went on.

"My father's watch and purse were untouched, and a stranger on a dark night would be hardly likely to have discovered the ladder, or to have had a file in his pocket with which to cut through a link, though this might have been part of the apparatus of any burglar.

Then, again, an ordinary man would hardly have known which was my father's bedroom, except, indeed, that he saw the light there after those in the ladies' rooms were extinguished; but, at any rate, he could not have told which was my father's and which was mine.

But all this is, as I said, Mr.Greg, quite between ourselves.
I had a long talk yesterday with Sir Charles Harris, and, as he said, there is no legal proof whatever, strong as the suspicion is; so I am going to say nothing on the subject at the inquest.

The scoundrel's poor father is dying, happily in ignorance of all this.