Rare and precious blossoms came from Sir Walter’s friends, and H. M. S. Indomitable sent a mighty anchor of purple violets.  Mr. May read the service without a tremor, but his eyes blazed out of his lean head, and there lacked not other signs to indicate the depth of emotion he concealed.  Then the bluejackets who had drawn the gun-carriage fired a volley, and the rattle of their musketry echoed sharply from the church tower.

Upon the evening of the day that followed Septimus May resumed the subject concerning which he had already fitfully spoken.  His ideas were now in order, and he brought a formidable argument to support a strange request.  Indeed, it amounted to a demand, and for a time it seemed doubtful whether Sir Walter would deny him.  The priest, indeed, declared that he could take no denial, and his host was thankful that other and stronger arguments than his own were at hand to argue the other side.  For Dr. Mannering stayed at the manor house after the funeral, and the Rev. Noel Prodgers, the vicar of Chadlands, a distant connection of the Lennoxes, was also dining there.  Until now Mannering could not well speak, but he invited himself to dinner on the day after the funeral that he might press a course of action upon those who had suffered so severely.  He wished Sir Walter to take his daughter away at once, for her health’s sake, and while advancing this advice considered the elder also, for these things had upset the master of Chadlands in mind and body, and Mannering was aware of it.

On the morrow Peter Hardcastle would arrive, and he had urgently directed that his coming should be in a private capacity, unknown to the local police or neighborhood.  Neither did he wish the staff of Chadlands to associate him with the tragedy.

An official examination of the room had been made by the local constabulary, as upon the occasion of Nurse Forrester’s death; but it was a perfunctory matter, and those responsible for it understood that special attention would presently be paid to the problem by the supreme authority.

“After this man has been and gone, I do earnestly beg you to leave England and get abroad, Sir Walter,” said Mannering.  “I think it your duty, not only for your girl’s sake, but your own.  Do not even wait for the report.  There is nothing to keep you, and I shall personally be very thankful and relieved if you will manage this and take Mary to some fresh scenes, a place or country that she has not visited before.  There is nothing like an entirely novel environment for distracting the mind, bracing the nerves, and restoring tone.”

“I must do my duty,” answered the other, “and that remains to be seen.  If Hardcastle should find out anything, there may be a call upon me.  At least, I cannot turn my back upon Chadlands till the mystery is threshed out to the bottom, as far as man can do it.”

It was then that Septimus May spoke and astounded his hearers.