“A man’s profession cannot alter his manners, my dear Ernest; they come from defects of temperament, no doubt.  May must not be judged.  His faith would move mountains.”

“So would mine,” said Ernest Travers, “and so would yours, Walter.  But it is perfectly possible to be a Christian and a gentleman.  To imply that our faith was weak because we expressed ordinary human emotions and pitied him unfeignedly for the loss of his only child—­”

“Good-bye, good-bye, my dear friends,” answered the other.  “I cannot say how I esteem your kindly offices in this affliction.  May we meet again presently.  God bless and keep you both.”

The post-mortem examination revealed no physical reason why Thomas May should have ceased to breathe.  Neither did the subsequent investigations of a Government analytical chemist throw any light upon the sailor’s sudden death.  No cause existed, and therefore none could be reported at the inquest held a day later.

The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict rarely heard, but none dissented from it.  They held that May had received his death “by the hand of God.”

“All men receive death from the hand of God,” said Septimus May, when the judicial inquiry was ended.  “They receive life from the hand of God also.  But, while bowing to that, there is a great deal more we are called to do when God’s hand falls as it has fallen upon my son.  To-night I shall pray beside his dust, and presently, when he is at peace, I shall be guided.  There is a grave duty beside me, Sir Walter, and none must come between me and that duty.”

“There is a duty before all of us, and be sure nobody will shrink from it.  I have done what is right, so far.  We have secured a famous detective—­the most famous in England, they tell me.  He is called Peter Hardcastle, and he will, I hope, be able to arrive here immediately.”

The clergyman shook his head.

“I will say nothing at present,” he answered.  “But, believe me, a thousand detectives cannot explain my son’s death.  I shall return to this subject after the funeral, Sir Walter.  But my conviction grows that the reason of these things will never be revealed to the eye of science.  To the eye of faith alone we must trust the explanation of what has happened.  There are things concealed from the wise and prudent—­to be revealed unto babes.”

That night the master of Chadlands, his nephew, and the priest dined together, and Henry Lennox implored a privilege.

“I feel I owe it to poor Tom in a way,” he said.  “I beg that you will let me spend the night in the Grey Room, Uncle Walter.  I would give my soul to clear this.”

But his uncle refused with a curt shake of the head, and the clergyman uttered a reproof.

“Do not speak so lightly,” he said.  “You use a common phrase and a very objectionable phrase, young man.  Do you rate your soul so low that you would surrender it for the satisfaction of a morbid craving?  For that is all this amounts to.  Not to such an inquirer will my son’s death reveal its secret.”