arisen which, in my mind, casts a doubt upon Richard Hare's guilt. I
question whether he had anything to do with the murder."

Mr. Dill opened his eyes. "But his flight, Mr. Archibald, And his
stopping away?"

"Suspicious circumstances, I grant. Still, I have good cause to doubt.
At the time it happened, some dandy fellow used to come courting Afy
Hallijohn in secret; a tall, slender man, as he is described to me,
bearing the name of Thorn, and living at Swainson. Could it have been
one of the Thorn family?"

"Mr. Archibald!" remonstrated the old clerk; "as if those two respected
gentlemen, with their wives and babies, would come sneaking after that
flyaway Afy!"

"No reflection on them," returned Mr. Carlyle. "This was a young man,
three or four and twenty, a head taller than either. I thought it might
be a relative."

"I have repeatedly heard them say that they are alone in the world;
that they are the two last of the name. Depend upon it, it was nobody
connected with them;" and wishing Mr. Carlyle good-night, he departed.

The servant came in to remove the glasses and the obnoxious pipes. Mr.
Carlyle sat in a brown study; presently he looked round at the man.

"Is Joyce gone to bed?"

"No, sir. She is just going."