There was a pause.  Mr. Carlyle looked keenly at Richard there in the moonlight.

“Very soon, almost in the same moment, as it seemed, some one came panting and tearing along the path leading from the cottage.  It was Thorn.  His appearance startled me:  I had never seen a man show more utter terror.  His face was livid, his eyes seemed starting, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth.  Had I been a strong man I should surely have attacked him.  I was mad with jealousy; for I then saw that Afy had sent me away that she might entertain him.”

“I thought you said this Thorn never came but at dusk,” observed Mr. Carlyle.

“I never knew him to do so until that evening.  All I can say is, he was there then.  He flew along swiftly, and I afterwards heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs galloping away.  I wondered what was up that he should look so scared, and scutter away as though the deuce was after him; I wondered whether he had quarreled with Afy.  I ran to the house, leaped up the two steps, and—­Carlyle—­I fell over the prostrate body of Hallijohn!  He was lying just within, on the kitchen floor, dead.  Blood was round about him, and my gun, just discharged, was thrown near.  He had been shot in the side.”

Richard stopped for breath.  Mr. Carlyle did not speak.

“I called to Afy.  No one answered.  No one was in the lower room; and it seemed that no one was in the upper.  A sort of panic came over me, a fear.  You know they always said at home I was a coward:  I could not have remained another minute with that dead man, had it been to save my own life.  I caught up the gun, and was making off, when—­”

“Why did you catch up the gun?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

“Ideas pass through our minds quicker than we can speak them, especially in these sorts of moments,” was the reply of Richard Hare.  “Some vague notion flashed on my brain that my gun ought not to be found near the murdered body of Hallijohn.  I was flying from the door, I say, when Locksley emerged from the wood, full in view; and what possessed me I can’t tell, but I did the worst thing I could do—­flung the gun indoors again, and got away, although Locksley called after me to stop.”

“Nothing told against you so much as that,” observed Mr. Carlyle.  “Locksley deposed that he had seen you leave the cottage, gun in hand, apparently in great commotion; that the moment you saw him, you hesitated, as from fear, flung back the gun, and escaped.”

Richard stamped his foot.  “Aye; and all owing to my cursed cowardice.  They had better have made a woman of me, and brought me up in petticoats.  But let me go on.  I came upon Bethel.  He was standing in that half-circle where the trees have been cut.  Now I knew that Bethel, if he had gone straight in the direction of the cottage, must have met Thorn quitting it.  ‘Did you encounter that hound?’ I asked him.  ’What hound?’ returned Bethel.  ’That fine fellow, that