THE sun's red rim had just sunk over the common; evening would soon close in, nothing had been found, save that one little scrap, which could possibly help even a keen lawyer in finding a clue. The strangers rose to depart, sorry to have had their trouble for nothing; the boys were quaking at thoughts of what would follow after the gentlemen had left; for a thunder cloud of gloom had gathered on the face of their father, and the children could read that face too well to expect to escape a storm.
May was standing close by Amy's chair, when, after a severe fit of coughing, her sister bent down towards her and whispered, "May, I have just thought of something; is not my pillow stuffed with paper?"
"Oh! Please—please don't say nothing about it!" was the anxious whispered reply, "Father will whack me well for tearing it up into such little bits."
"I will try not to bring you into trouble; but I think that we ought to tell father," said Amy.
Mr. Garway had risen, and was putting on his hat, as he turned to nod a kindly good-bye to the sick young girl. Amy, with a painful effort, drew the pillow from under her head and said faintly, "Perhaps this had better be looked at, it is stuffed with pieces of paper."
"Why did you not tell that before?" exclaimed Mytton with anger.
And in a moment, his rough hand had torn up poor May's work from the top to the bottom, and scattered its contents in a little heap on the table.
"Plenty of fragments of old manuscripts here," said Garway, whose quick eye instantly detected the yellowish hue and the peculiar fabric of many of the morsels of paper.
"Ah! I should not wonder if this matched our three-cornered bit," cried Sharp, pouncing upon a tiny piece which held but three letters, "mar." He placed the two fragments together, they fitted exactly.
Mytton uttered an exclamation of triumph.