"Yes, Miss Lethbridge; I firmly believe it."
All this time she had held his hand, and now she lowered her face to it; and a thrill ran through Garden's frame as he felt the soft pressure of her lips. Then Fanny turned and went to her mother's side, and folded her in her arms.
CHAPTER XV.
A STRANGE EXPERIMENT.
At an hour past midnight Fred Cornwall called for Aunt Leth in a closed carriage, drawn by a pair of smart horses. Aunt Leth, warmly enveloped in a cloak which entirely covered her dress, was waiting for him. Parting from her family with tears and kisses and blessings, she accompanied Fred to the carriage, and they drove slowly off in the direction of Parksides.
About a mile behind them, on the same road, trotted a horse attached to a dog-cart. Garden was driving, and Tom Barley sat by his side. On the back seat sat a groom.
"What I want you to do, Tom," said Garden, "is to go over the ground exactly as you did on the night of the murder. Where you stopped then, I want you to stop now; and it will be all the better if you can remember the exact turns you took on that occasion."
"There's no fear, sir, of my not being able to remember. Day and night I think of nothing else."
"And now tell me again what occurred on the night Miss Farebrother was turned from her father's house, and you rode with her to London on that scoundrel Pamflett's horse."