Robin Frost struggled out of the room as the crowd was dispersing.  His eye was blazing, his cheek burning.  Could Robin have laid his hand at that moment upon the right man, there would speedily have ensued another coroner’s inquest.  The earth was not wide enough for the two to live on it.  Fortunately, Robin could not fix on any one, and say, Thou art the man!  The knowledge was hidden from him.  And yet, the very man may have been at the inquest, side by side with himself.  Nay, he probably was.

Robin Frost cleared himself from the crowd.  He gave vent to a groan of despair; he lifted his strong arms in impotency.  Then he turned and sought Mr. Verner.

Mr. Verner was ill; could not be seen.  Lionel came forward.

“Robin, I am truly sorry—­truly grieved.  We all are.  But I know you will not care to-day to hear me say it.”

“Sir, I wanted to see Mr. Verner,” replied Robin.  “I want to know if that inquest can be squashed.”  Don’t laugh at him now, poor fellow.  He meant quashed.

“The inquest quashed!” repeated Lionel.  “Of course it cannot be.  I don’t know what you mean, Robin.  It has been held, and it cannot be unheld.”

“I should ha’ said the verdict,” explained Robin.  “I’m beside myself to-day, Mr. Lionel.  Can’t Mr. Verner get it squashed?  He knows the crowner.”

“Neither Mr. Verner nor anybody else could do it, Robin.  Why should you wish it done?”

“Because it as good as sets forth a lie,” vehemently answered Robin Frost.  “She never put herself into the water.  Bad as things had turned out with her, poor dear, she never did that.  Mr. Lionel, I ask you, sir, was she likely to do it?”

“I should have deemed it very unlikely,” replied Lionel.  “Until to-day,” he added to his own thoughts.

“No, she never did!  Was it the work of one to go and buy herself aprons, and tape, and cotton for sewing, who was on her way to fling herself into a pond, I’d ask the crowner?” he continued, his voice rising almost to a shriek in his emotion.  “Them aprons be a proof that she didn’t take her own life.  Why didn’t they bring it in Wilful Murder, and have the place scoured out to find him?”

“The verdict will make no difference to the finding him, Robin,” returned Lionel Verner.

“I dun know that, sir.  When a charge of wilful murder’s out in a place, again’ some one of the folks in it, the rest be all on the edge to find him; but ‘Found drownded’ is another thing.  Have you any suspicion again’ anybody, sir?”

He put the question sharply and abruptly, and Lionel Verner looked full in his face as he answered, “No, Robin.”

“Well, good-afternoon, sir.”

He turned away without another word.  Lionel gazed after him with true sympathy.  “He will never recover this blow,” was Lionel Verner’s mental comment.