Naomi asked, “Then you no longer think that he ran away?”

“No, madam; I am certain there was worse than that.  You remember the night of the bonfire for the Bishops’ acquittal, Miss Woodford?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Well, he was never seen again after that, as you know.  The place was full of wild folk.  There was brawling right and left.”

“Were you there?” asked Anne surprised.

“Yes; in my coach with my uncle and aunt that lived with me, though, except Robin, none of the young sparks would come near me, except some that I knew were after my pockets,” said Martha, with a good-humoured laugh.  “Properly frightened we were too by the brawling sailors ere we got home!  Now, what could be more likely than that some of them got hold of poor Perry?  You know he always would go about with the rapier he brought from Germany, with amber set in the hilt, and the mosaic snuff-box he got in Italy, and what could be looked for but that the poor dear lad should be put out of the way for the sake of these gewgaws?” This supposition was gratifying to Anne, but her uncle must needs ask why Mrs. Oakshott thought so more than before.

“Because,” she said impressively, “there is no doubt but that he has been seen, and not in the flesh, once and again, and always about these ruins.”

“By whom, madam, may I ask?”

“Mrs. Fellowes’s maids, as she knows, saw him once on the beach at night, just there.  The sentry, who is Tom Hart, from our parish, saw a shape at the opening of the old vault before the keep and challenged him, when he vanished out of sight ere there was time to present a musket.  There was once more, when one moonlight night our sexton, looking out of his cottage window, saw what he declares was none other than Master Perry standing among the graves of our family, as if, poor youth, he were asking why he was not among them.  When I heard that, I said to my husband, ‘Depend upon it,’ says I, ’he met with his death that night, and was thrown into some hole, and that’s the reason he cannot rest.  If I pay a hundred pounds for it, I’ll not give up till his poor corpse is found to have Christian burial, and I’ll begin with the old vault at Portchester!’ My good father, the Major, would not hear of it at first, nor my husband either, but ’tis my money, and I know how to tackle Robin.”

It was with strangely mingled feelings that Anne listened.  That search in the vault, inaugurated by faithful Martha, was what she had always felt ought to be made, and she had even promised to attempt it if the apparitions recurred.  The notion of the deed being attributed to lawless sailors and smugglers or highwaymen, who were known to swarm in the neighbourhood, seemed to remove all danger of suspicion.  Yet she could not divest herself of a vague sense of alarm at this stirring up of what had slept for seven years.  Neither she nor her uncle deemed it needful to mention