"Why are you looking unlike yourself?" Crayford answered,
quietly.

Wardour made no reply. He renewed the conversation with Frank.

"One of the county families?" he resumed. "The Winterbys of Yew
Grange, I dare say?"

"No," said Frank; "but friends of the Witherbys, very likely. The
Burnhams."

Desperately as he struggled to maintain it, Wardour's
self-control failed him. He started violently. The clumsily-wound
handkerchief fell off his hand. Still looking at him attentively,
Crayford picked it up.

"There is your handkerchief, Richard," he said. "Strange!"

"What is strange?"

"You told us you had hurt yourself with the ax--"

"Well?"

"There is no blood on your handkerchief."

Wardour snatched the handkerchief out of Crayford's hand, and,
turning away, approached the outer door of the hut. "No blood on
the handkerchief," he said to himself. "There may be a stain or
two when Crayford sees it again." He stopped within a few paces