Upon the evening of the day that followed Septimus May resumed the
subject concerning which he had already fitfully spoken. His ideas
were now in order, and he brought a formidable argument to support
a strange request. Indeed, it amounted to a demand, and for a time
it seemed doubtful whether Sir Walter would deny him. The priest,
indeed, declared that he could take no denial, and his host was
thankful that other and stronger arguments than his own were at
hand to argue the other side. For Dr. Mannering stayed at the
manor house after the funeral, and the Rev. Noel Prodgers, the
vicar of Chadlands, a distant connection of the Lennoxes, was also
dining there. Until now Mannering could not well speak, but he
invited himself to dinner on the day after the funeral that he
might press a course of action upon those who had suffered so
severely. He wished Sir Walter to take his daughter away at once,
for her health's sake, and while advancing this advice considered
the elder also, for these things had upset the master of Chadlands
in mind and body, and Mannering was aware of it.

On the morrow Peter Hardcastle would arrive, and he had urgently
directed that his coming should be in a private capacity, unknown
to the local police or neighborhood. Neither did he wish the staff
of Chadlands to associate him with the tragedy.

An official examination of the room had been made by the local
constabulary, as upon the occasion of Nurse Forrester's death; but
it was a perfunctory matter, and those responsible for it understood
that special attention would presently be paid to the problem by the
supreme authority.