came up a sudden moaning gust and left us instantly benighted.

"It will come to snow," says my lord; "and the best thing that we
could hope. Let us go back now; we can do nothing in the dark."

As we went houseward, the wind being again subsided, we were aware
of a strong pattering noise about us in the night; and when we
issued from the shelter of the trees, we found it raining smartly.

Throughout the whole of this, my lord's clearness of mind, no less
than his activity of body, had not ceased to minister to my
amazement. He set the crown upon it in the council we held on our
return. The freetraders had certainly secured the Master, though
whether dead or alive we were still left to our conjectures; the
rain would, long before day, wipe out all marks of the transaction;
by this we must profit. The Master had unexpectedly come after the
fall of night; it must now he given out he had as suddenly departed
before the break of day; and, to make all this plausible, it now
only remained for me to mount into the man's chamber, and pack and
conceal his baggage. True, we still lay at the discretion of the
traders; but that was the incurable weakness of our guilt.

I heard him, as I said, with wonder, and hastened to obey. Mr. and
Mrs. Henry were gone from the hall; my lord, for warmth's sake,
hurried to his bed; there was still no sign of stir among the
servants, and as I went up the tower stair, and entered the dead
man's room, a horror of solitude weighed upon my mind. To my
extreme surprise, it was all in the disorder of departure. Of his
three portmanteaux, two were already locked; the third lay open and
near full. At once there flashed upon me some suspicion of the