Mounting my horse I pushed on again at a canter, taking the road past Waingford Mills through the fords and Pirnhow town, leaving Bungay upon my left.  In ten minutes I was at the gate of the bridle path that runs from the Norwich road for half a mile or more beneath the steep and wooded bank under the shelter of which stands the Lodge at Ditchingham.  By the gate a man loitered in the last rays of the sun.  I looked at him and knew him; it was Billy Minns, that same fool who had loosed de Garcia when I left him bound that I might run to meet my sweetheart.  He was an old man now and his white hair hung about his withered face, moreover he was unclean and dressed in rags, but I could have fallen on his neck and embraced him, so rejoiced was I to look once more on one whom I had known in youth.

Seeing me come he hobbled on his stick to the gate to open it for me, whining a prayer for alms.

‘Does Mr. Wingfield live here?’ I said, pointing up the path, and my breath came quick as I asked.

‘Mr. Wingfield, sir, Mr. Wingfield, which of them?’ he answered.  ’The old gentleman he’s been dead nigh upon twenty years.  I helped to dig his grave in the chancel of yonder church I did, we laid him by his wife—­her that was murdered.  Then there’s Mr. Geoffrey.’

‘What of him?’ I asked.

’He’s dead, too, twelve year gone or more; he drank hisself to dead he did.  And Mr. Thomas, he’s dead, drowned over seas they say, many a winter back; they’re all dead, all dead!  Ah! he was a rare one, Mr. Thomas was; I mind me well how when I let the furriner go—­’ and he rambled off into the tale of how he had set de Garcia on his horse after I had beaten him, nor could I bring him back from it.

Casting him a piece of money, I set spurs to my weary horse and cantered up the bridle path, leaving the Mill House on my left, and as I went, the beat of his hoofs seemed to echo the old man’s words, ’All dead, all dead!’ Doubtless Lily was dead also, or if she was not dead, when the tidings came that I had been drowned at sea, she would have married.  Being so fair and sweet she would surely not have lacked for suitors, nor could it be believed that she had worn her life away mourning over the lost love of her youth.

Now the Lodge was before me; it had changed no whit except that the ivy and creepers on its front had grown higher, to the roof indeed, and I could see that people lived in the house, for it was well kept, and smoke hung above the chimneys.  The gate was locked, and there were no serving men about, for night fell fast, and all had ceased from their labour.  Leaving the house on the right I passed round it to the stables that are at the back near the hillside garden, but here the gate was locked also, and I dismounted not knowing what to do.  Indeed I was so unmanned with fear and doubt that for a while I seemed bewildered, and leaving the horse to crop the grass where he stood, I wandered to the foot of the church path and gazed up the hill as though I waited for the coming of one whom I should meet.