Joseph had laid him stark."

That both her uncle and her father had lied to her - the one
cunningly, the other stupidly - she had never a doubt, and
vaguely uneasy was Cynthia to learn the truth. Later that day
the castle was busy with the bustle of Joseph's departure, and
this again was a matter that puzzled her.

"Whither do you journey, uncle?" she asked of him as he was in
the act of stepping out to enter the waiting carriage.

"To London, sweet cousin," was his brisk reply. "I am, it
seems, becoming a very vagrant in my old age. Have you
commands for me?"

"What is it you look to do in London?"

"There, child, let that be for the present. I will tell you
perhaps when I return. The door, Stephen."

She watched his departure with uneasy eyes and uneasy heart. A
fear pervaded her that in all that had befallen, in all that
was befalling still - what ever it might be - some evil was at
work, and an evil that had Crispin for its scope. She had
neither reason nor evidence from which to draw this inference.
It was no more than the instinct whose voice cries out to us at
times a presage of ill, and oftentimes compels our attention in
a degree far higher than any evidence could command.

The fear that was in her urged her to seek what information she