Mr. Dill opened his eyes.  “But his flight, Mr. Archibald, And his stopping away?”

“Suspicious circumstances, I grant.  Still, I have good cause to doubt.  At the time it happened, some dandy fellow used to come courting Afy Hallijohn in secret; a tall, slender man, as he is described to me, bearing the name of Thorn, and living at Swainson.  Could it have been one of the Thorn family?”

“Mr. Archibald!” remonstrated the old clerk; “as if those two respected gentlemen, with their wives and babies, would come sneaking after that flyaway Afy!”

“No reflection on them,” returned Mr. Carlyle.  “This was a young man, three or four and twenty, a head taller than either.  I thought it might be a relative.”

“I have repeatedly heard them say that they are alone in the world; that they are the two last of the name.  Depend upon it, it was nobody connected with them;” and wishing Mr. Carlyle good-night, he departed.

The servant came in to remove the glasses and the obnoxious pipes.  Mr. Carlyle sat in a brown study; presently he looked round at the man.

“Is Joyce gone to bed?”

“No, sir.  She is just going.”

“Send her here when you have taken away those things.”

Joyce came in—­the upper servant at Miss Carlyle’s.  She was of middle height, and would never see five and thirty again; her forehead was broad, her gray eyes were deeply set, and her face was pale.  Altogether she was plain, but sensible-looking.  She was the half-sister of Afy Hallijohn.

“Shut the door, Joyce.”

Joyce did as she was bid, came forward, and stood by the table.

“Have you ever heard from your sister, Joyce?” began Mr. Carlyle, somewhat abruptly.

“No, sir,” was the reply; “I think it would be a wonder if I did hear.”

“Why so?”

“If she would go off after Richard Hare, who had sent her father into his grave, she would be more likely to hide herself and her doings than to proclaim them to me, sir.”

“Who was that other, that fine gentleman, who came after her?”

The color mantled in Joyce’s cheeks, and she dropped her voice.

“Sir!  Did you hear of him?”

“Not at that time.  Since.  He came from Swainson, did he not?”

“I believe so, sir.  Afy never would say much about him.  We did not agree upon the point.  I said a person of his rank would do her no good; and Afy flew out when I spoke against him.”

Mr. Carlyle caught her up.  “His rank.  What was his rank?”

“Afy bragged of his being next door to a lord; and he looked like it.  I only saw him once; I had gone home early, and there sat him and Afy.  His white hands were all glittering with rings, and his shirt was finished off with shining stones where the buttons ought to be.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“Never since, never but once; and I don’t think I should know him if I did see him.  He got up, sir, as soon as I went into the parlor, shook hands with Afy, and left.  A fine, upright man he was, nearly as tall as you, sir, but very slim.  Those soldiers always carry themselves well.”